Gakido
by notmanos
Summary: Post X2: Logan gets roped into the search for a mystical object that is wanted by several dangerous beings, and ends up getting help from a notorious vampire. But are they good enough to survive a demonic gang war? And dare he trust the undead?
1. Part 1

Disclaimer:The character of Logan & all X Men is owned by 20th Century Fox and Marvel Comics. No copyright infringement intended. Bob is still mine - hands off.   
  
N.B.: Takes place shortly after the "X2" movie, and As Good As Dead.  
  
GAKIDO  
  
"Hell is oneself.  
  
Hell is alone, the other figures in it  
  
Merely projections. There is nothing to escape from  
  
And nothing to escape to. One is always alone." - T.S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party  
  
Gakido - The 'Demon Road' or Purgatory in Japanese cosmology. It is the lowest form of existence. (Courtesy of the Encyclopedia Mythica, http://www.pantheon.org/mythica.html)  
  
****  
  
1  
  
Logan started in on his fourth beer of the afternoon, and once again wondered where the hell he was. Not that it mattered - all places had the same sort of dreary sameness about them. He just wondered how much farther until civilization completely dropped away.  
  
He wasn't even sure how long he'd been rambling around, although he guessed it to be two weeks, give or take a handful of days. He remembered … maybe it was a week ago … when he was staying at a fleabag hotel on the other side of the border (well, he had to be somewhere in Canada now - the speed limit signs were now in kilometers), Xavier called him. But he didn't give him a chance to say more than "Logan - " "Leave me the fuck alone," he had snapped, and then slammed down the receiver. To his knowledge, Xavier hadn't tried to contact him again.  
  
Had Bob put him up to it, or was it just Xavier wanting to use him for something else? He didn't know, and ultimately he didn't care.  
  
Did Xavier know about Jean? Had he figured it out or had she contacted him in some way? Or had Bob finally told him? Not that he cared. None of it mattered; Jean was - either way - stuck in some kind of limbo state, neither dead nor alive, and not quite what she was before. He knew, and he wished he didn't know. He wished he didn't have memories of her - and some of her memories - rattling around his head.  
  
He wished he could sleep, or at least drink himself into complete, wonderful oblivion.  
  
In all these days that had blurred together, running like watercolors in the rain, he figured he'd gotten, in total, maybe ten hours sleep. He was more afraid to sleep than ever before, and it didn't seem to come so easily to him anymore.  
  
He ached to se her again; he was terrified to see her again. He was so fucking sick and tired of the dichotomies of his life he could scream. And sometimes his head even hurt, and that had never happened before. Or maybe it wasn't pain; it was hard to tell. It was like his head was pumped full of helium, lighter than the rest of his body, and he was staring out from far back within his own skull. It was disorienting and uncomfortable, but not necessarily painful, just annoying. Maybe the lack of quality rest was finally getting even to his miraculous healing factor; maybe he was finally starting to break down.  
  
But if that were true, why couldn't he feel the alcohol?  
  
The bartender had turned the television over the bar from the news (people, apparently, were killing each other all over the world - what a shocker) to a baseball game, to pacify three sad sacks melting on their stools at the bar. Logan always thought baseball was one of those games you had to have some alcohol in you to really enjoy, so therefore its appeal eluded him. At least in hockey, there was a fifty-fifty chance of a fight, or somebody getting rammed through the safety glass - the ball players never attacked each other with the bats, did they? Might be a more popular game if they did.  
  
Logan rested his head in his hands, trying to curb that floating feeling, when he felt a shadow pass by him - a shadow with a familiar scent. "You make it tough to find you on purpose, don't you?" Marcus said, sliding into the chair across from him.  
  
Logan slowly looked up and stared at Scorpion. He had dark fuzz on his scalp, like he was letting his hair grow back, but he had the same shit eating grin and black goggles as always. He still had the small gold scorpion dangling from his left earlobe, but now he had four other gold and silver earrings behind it, leading up the outer rim of his ear. Knowing how painful it was to have cartilage grow back, he couldn't imagine having holes drilled in it on purpose. "Who sent you?" He growled. "Bob or Xavier?"  
  
Marcus held up his gloved hands, and tried on an innocent look that didn't quite fit his face. "Neither, kemosabe, I found you for my own selfish purposes. But good god almighty, Loge, you look like shit warmed over. When's the last time you slept or had a bath? You almost look like you belong in this hellhole."  
  
"I do belong in this hellhole. Go away."  
  
He was afraid that wouldn't work, and it didn't. Marcus simply raised an eyebrow at him. "What is it with me lookin' you up when you're at your lowest? Is it my luck, or are you an unmedicated clinical depressive?"  
  
He glared at him across the scarred table in this smoky, unrepentantly sad bar in the middle of Bumfuck Nowhere, and wished he had never had contact with the outside world. "Go away, Marcus. I can't help you, and I'm in no mood for this shit."  
  
"You're never in the mood for anything. I don't know how you get laid as much as you do."  
  
Logan growled before gulping down the rest of his weak, watery beer in a single swallow. Marcus only chuckled. "See, the growling thing, that turns me on."  
  
He slammed the mug down hard enough on the table that it rocked on its slightly uneven legs, and the mug cracked, not quite shattering, but Logan could see the filaments growing inside the glass, just waiting for the slightest hint of pressure that would send it all flying apart. "I said go the fuck away," he snarled, the anger in him as raw and hot as boiling acid. He knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that this was Marcus, probably the best friend he could ever remember having, and yet he also knew this was in Marc's best interest - stay the fuck away from him, and as far away as possible.  
  
The bartender, a thick necked old guy, mostly hard fat and tobacco yellowed skin, said loudly, "Is that boy bothering you?"  
  
Oh god no.  
  
Marc looked over slowly, his head canting in a way that most people would judge as curious, but Logan knew from experience was simply Marcus visually scanning his target for the weak points. "Tell me you didn't just say that," he said, in a pseudo-humorous manner that was full of barely suppressed anger. "Tell me you didn't just call me boy."  
  
The bartender was too stupid to live. He glared back at Marcus, narrowing small, pale eyes nearly submerged in his round, fleshy face, and sneered, "And what's with those glasses? If you ain't a blind boy, are you one of them freaks?"  
  
Marcus stood up, so rapidly his chair scraped across the wooden floor with a noise as violent as a scream. "Which one is worse, in your esteemed opinion? Bein' black or bein' a freak?"  
  
"Same difference, ain't it?"  
  
Logan heard it. The hasty removal of a glass bottle from the surface of the oaken bar top, the bottom of it sliding slightly in the moisture of condensation, and the whistle as it was thrown through the air.  
  
In a single swift movement - faster than even he would have thought possible right now - Logan jumped to his feet, turned around to face the incoming projectile, and sprung the claws from his left hand as he lashed out at where he expected the bottle to be. Even though he didn't quite see it, he hit it with his claws, and it shattered into a million pieces. "Stay the fuck out of this!" He roared at the stunned collection of rednecks. They were all staring at him goggle eyed now, terrified of the weird looking rummy who turned out to have knives in his hands.   
  
One of them stood up so hastily he nearly fell off his stool, and did his best to feign some sort of dignity as he backed towards the door. The others were too stunned to do anything but stare, except the bartender, who seemed to be inching closer to the opposite end of the bar.   
  
Logan impaled him with a gaze that felt wild and hollowed eyed, even to himself. "You go for that gun, cocksucker, and I will shove it so far up your ass you'll be able to taste it in the back of your throat."  
  
Proving he at least had two brain cells to rub together for warmth, the bartender froze on the spot.  
  
The atmosphere was tense and charged, and Logan realized how good it would probably feel to hurt someone right now - maybe kill someone. The world was full of assholes, and none of them deserved to live - not if Jean couldn't.   
  
"Well, I guess I don't need to call Al Sharpton now," Marcus said, breaking the silence. "C'mon bud, let's blow this redneck bugger hole. I know a place where the bartender doesn't jerk off in the glasses first."  
  
It seemed to take Logan a moment to process the fact that he was talking to him, and then he wondered why. Leave? Just as it was getting good?  
  
Marcus walked past him, heading for the door, his long black leather coat swirling behind him like a cape. No one made any further derisive comments or threatening moves towards him, but then again, they were paralyzed with fear. It wouldn't take much to wipe them all out - they were fucking helpless, and useless even when they weren't.   
  
"Bud?" Marcus said, standing by the door and gesturing to it. "Abandonar?"  
  
Well, he couldn't stay here any longer, could he? He growled at them as he stalked past, not bothering to sheath his claws, and in a way he hoped that one of the dumbasses would try something. But nobody did, and he was disappointed.   
  
Marcus gave all of the rednecks the one finger salute, and said, "It's been real, but next time I see you, you'll all be sucking my dick. Probably with a lot more enthusiasm than your wives. Adios, putas."  
  
Outside it was nicely gray, the air cleaner than most big cities, and he was glad he didn't have to see the sun. He didn't want to see the sun; a world of night would have suited him just fine. Things were uglier in daylight anyways. "So what's say you go back to your hotel, clean up, and I'll take you to this great bar I know about in Winnipeg?" Marcus said, as soon as the door swung shut behind him. "Play our cards right, we'll probably get laid, and you look like you could use it."  
  
Logan stalked to his motorcycle, retracting his claws, and only stopped to look back at Marcus once he had reached it. "Winnipeg? Are we in Manitoba?"  
  
Marcus cocked his head at him, and his jaw went slack. "You're so out of it you don't even know where you are?"  
  
"I am not out of it," he snapped, straddling the bike. God, he was tired. It was a bone deep weariness that seemed beyond mere exhaustion - there was no word for this feeling.  
  
"Fuck you, man, you are so! What the fuck happened? Did Xavier pull some shit on ya?"  
  
Logan glared at him. "I'm not doing this."  
  
Marcus threw his hands out wide, as if asking a question. "Don't wanna talk about it, fine. But let's go out for a drink at a decent place, huh? Maybe I can buy you a burger - when was the last time you ate something? Do you know?"  
  
Logan continued to glare at him. "What the fuck are you, my mother?"  
  
"Claw me for carin', man, but you really do look half past dead."  
  
"What the fuck do you want from me?"  
  
Marcus raised an eyebrow at him, and stuck his hands in the pockets of his coat. "I kinda needed your help, man. But I didn't realize you were so shitty, so maybe I should just take a pass, huh?"  
  
"I am not shitty. And maybe I'm tired of bailin' your ass out."  
  
Marcus was quiet for a long time, and Logan could feel his eyes punching through him like laser beams. "Say that again?"  
  
He had enough awareness left to realize he had stepped over the line. After all, hadn't Marcus bailed him out last time? Those demon fucks would have attacked the mansion if Marc hadn't intervened. Logan rubbed his forehead (he swear it hurt), and said, with great regret, "I didn't mean that. I'm just … done with people, okay? I'm tired."  
  
"No shit, Sherlock. You look like you need about a month's hibernation."  
  
He ignored that, and wondered if the truth would be enough to scare Marcus off. "I killed you, you know."  
  
That honestly confused him. "Pardon?"  
  
"Montana, the Shadowcaster Base. We got ambushed, remember? You got a hole the size of a grapefruit blown in your chest." He used his hands to make the shape and size of the hole, for demonstration purposes. "I think I saw one of your lungs. You were a dead man, Marc. Only Bob showed up in time to pull you back from the brink. But I still killed you, and for absolutely fucking nothing."  
  
"Fuck you, it was the assholes with the armor piercers that technically killed me. And I wasn't dead, just almost; almost only counts in horseshoes and rocket propelled hand grenades."  
  
Logan sat back, mildly surprised. "You knew? You remembered?"  
  
Marcus shrugged. "Yeah. And so? What's the point you're trying to make here?"  
  
He honestly couldn't believe this. Had Bob pushed him to accept it? "It doesn't bother you that being anywhere near me can get you dead?"  
  
He made a rude noise, and waved his hand dismissively. "Sweetcheeks, I'm a mercenary, 'kay? It ain't the safest line of work in the world. If I wanted to play it safe, I'd be doin' what every other philosophy major is doin' - busing your table. But safety isn't for me. Die young, leave a pretty corpse."  
  
"It's not pretty when you have a cannonball sized hole in your chest."  
  
"No, but as long as they don't hit the face, I'm good." He then flashed him his trademark smart ass grin at him.  
  
Logan shook his head. This was unbelievable. Bob must have pushed him to accept it, or Marc was really and truly insane. (Well, he thought he was his friend, so yeah, that last one would track.) "Get someone else."  
  
"I can't get someone else. I need someone I trust, someone who's smart, someone who can take care of themselves if shit goes down, and someone who speaks Japanese. According to my list, you're it."  
  
"How do you know I speak Japanese?"  
  
Marcus scoffed. "Fuck you - you speak everything. You're like a "Universal Translator" on legs."  
  
Well, he had him there. "You think I'm smart?"  
  
"I knew you'd glom on to that."  
  
"You're still tryin' to get into my pants, aren't you?"  
  
"The way they smell now? Fuck you and your mother! Assuming the zookeeper ain't doin' her, of course."  
  
"Of course." He rubbed his eyes, and just decided to give up. Maybe he would leave him alone if he just gave him something that he wanted. "Look, what is it I'm supposed to do?"  
  
"Come with me tomorrow and listen to him explain what the gig is."  
  
Now Logan knew he had missed something. "Wait a minute. You tracked me down all this way so I'd listen to some guy talk?"  
  
Marcus threw up his hands and looked up to the sky, as if appealing for help from a passing jet fighter. "You stupid … look, there's obviously more to it than that, but I ain't gonna announce it in the parking lot of Jimmy Jim Joe Bob's Chug-A-Lug Palace, am I?"  
  
Logan briefly checked to make sure that wasn't the actual name of the bar. Oh thank god it wasn't - that would have been a new low for him. (Well, hell, it was Manitoba; a place by that name could actually exist.) "If I tell you to fuck off, will you leave me alone?"  
  
Marcus sighed, and let his arms collapse to his sides. "No, Logan. I'm going to wheedle, nag, and cajole you until you attack me. And then I'll use my venom on you, and since I've never hit you with it before, it should paralyze you. And I'll drag you with me to meet my client, and prop you up in a corner so you can listen while the poison wears off."  
  
"That's actually a good plan."  
  
"Isn't it? I thought so."  
  
Logan hung his head down on his chest, and let out a heavy sigh of his own. He was nearly paralyzed right now, and Marcus hadn't even sunk his fingernails into his skin. "Fine. Buy me a beer and tell me the gory details of this meeting of yours. But if I don't like it, I walk, and you leave me the fuck alone - got it?"  
  
"Fine by me. But, seriously dude, a shower never killed anyone."  
  
"Except in Psycho," he couldn't help but point out. He had no idea why, except it was something about Marcus - his smart ass cracks were contagious.  
  
Marcus clicked his tongue impatiently. "Now come on, it was Norman Bates and his knife that killed her, not the shower. The shower always gets the blame."  
  
Logan was convinced now that he had completely lost his mind. But at least Marcus had proved he wasn't alone there.  
  
2  
  
Bob materialized inside what appeared to be a massive library, with bookshelves towering thirty feet high, and reaching out for miles in both directions, under a sky that seemed to be made of prismatic crystal. The floor was black marble, veined with miniature rivers of gold, and thin tendrils of sand colored vines twined over the top of the shelves, arranging and rearranging books, slipping beneath jackets and spines of flesh, leather, and pulverized bone, and sliding them off the slick marble shelves.  
  
And still, it smelled musty.  
  
He was surprised he hadn't been intercepted immediately. Was he out? He started walking down the wide aisle, looking for an outlet. "The circumstance it turns you inside out," he sang, glancing at the spines for book titles. There were precious few; most were marked with hieroglyphs that obviously followed a very specific, personal system. He'd ask the vines for help, but they didn't talk. "So we can have peace before you find out what's inside your head. And all the flashing lights and futile cries, they're left with you now - "   
  
Up ahead, he saw a large book standing alone on a marble plinth, spotlighted by an unclear source. Would he have kept note of it in there?  
  
"- just close your eyes and take that final step." He finished, coming around to look at the open pages of the thick tome, clad in the skin of one thousand different mortal beings.  
  
The pages were snow white vellum, and the ink blood from manifold beings, mixed until it was black with a few flecks of copper within. There were neat columns of names written in a familiar, scratchy hand. Ares, Kumiho, Powers (2), Ra, Kombu, Fenrir, Phobos, Agrona, Kuk, Balder, Shen Yi, Hermes, and Camaxtli, in ink so fresh it still looked wet. And scratched at the bottom, in temporary ink, was "Bob?" and he could feel the wishful thinking behind that doodle.  
  
But the ink was fading away, as it should. He didn't belong in the pantheon of dead gods, or at least, not yet.  
  
"What the hell are you doing here, peasant?" Osiris snapped, coming striding down the marble aisle towards him.  
  
"Looking for a dead person, Sy - why else would someone visit your underworld realm?" He replied coolly, turning to face him.  
  
Sy still looked as he did the last time he had seen him. Tall and pale, his hair the white of polished bone, his bird like black and gold eyes too large and flat for his otherwise human looking head, and his fingers ending in sharp points of bare, filed down bones. He still wore a black outfit that gleamed like oil, making him look like a Nazi trooper who'd seen The Matrix one too many times. "You live to annoy me," Sy hissed in a truly bitchy manner, stomping up to the book of dead and glaring at him, as if he was afraid he'd set it on fire or something.  
  
It was a thought.  
  
"No, not just you," Bob corrected him, then got to the reason why he was here. "I need you to confirm something for me."  
  
Sy's avocado sized hawk eyes glared back at him blankly. "Am I your lackey, exile?"  
  
"No, but you do keep records on the dead. I need you to hit the books for me, confirm a death."  
  
"You couldn't find a body?"  
  
"No, and I couldn't confirm or deny it through other sources, so you're it. Don't gloat about it."  
  
"Why would I gloat?" He asked, clearly gloating.  
  
Bob rolled his eyes, and wished his other contacts would have come through. He hated dealing with Osiris. The funny thing is, no one needed to keep records on the dead - Osiris did because he reveled in this kind of thing. He loved the dead; he loved surrounding himself with the mementoes and remains of the deceased of several realms (he'd have done it for all, but even his realm didn't have that kind of space). He was one morbid and kinky son of a bitch.  
  
"Is this dead a person from the earthly realm?" Sy asked, even though Bob thought that was perfectly obvious.  
  
"Yes, a human named Jean Grey. Died - supposedly - about two months ago in Alberta, Canada. Can you confirm that?"  
  
Sy made a "sit down" gesture with his hand, and three bookshelves sunk into the marble floor, revealing even more overcrowded bookshelves behind them. "That's the death records for the earthly plane from just last week. Do you realize how long that's going to take?"  
  
"I know. But I have no doubts about your competency, Sy."  
  
He snorted in disbelief, aware that Bob was just blowing sunshine up his skirt. "Your ass kissing is sub-par, pariah."  
  
"Indeedy do. I also have another thing you might want to look into." He tapped the page of the dead god pantheon, right under Camaxtli's name. "I'm not sure this is accurate."  
  
Sy's eyes widened, and threatened to bug out of his small, pale face. "Eris killed him. Were you not there?"  
  
"Cammy was expecting a throw down - okay, with me not her, but still this was no shock. I think he may have had an emergency escape hatch."  
  
He cocked his head to the side, just like a confused lorikeet. "Are you suggesting he had an avatar?"  
  
"Sounds like it, don't it?"  
  
He scoffed derisively. "Camaxtli washed his hands of all other realms."  
  
"He did, or at least he wanted us to think that. Do you really think he was so dumb he'd leave himself open to attack with no back-up plan?"  
  
He tilted his chin up, and assumed a haughty pose. "No one expects Eris."  
  
Bob was sorely tempted to say "And no one expects the Spanish Inquisition either," but he managed to resist the urge. "He was expecting the attack from me, like I said, but that's not how it went down. Is this sinking in at all, Sy?"  
  
He scowled at him, adding folds of flesh to his severely angular face. "Don't you speak to me that way, peon - certainly not in my realm. Why the hell should I help you, outcast?"  
  
Bob clasped his hands behind his back and rocked on the balls of his feet, making a show of thinking about it. "Because I could toast your ass? Send you to the earthly realm and put you on the Jerry Springer show? 'Outdated Gods Into Necrophilia, And The Demi-Gods Who Love Them - Next.' "  
  
Sy stared at him blankly. "The earthly realm has made you insane."  
  
Bob chuckled, and said, "Don't make me get up. God, that's my favorite pointless threat. If that's actually a threat, anything can be a threat. Don't make me put my shoes on; don't make me put down my sandwich; don't make me change my pants." He couldn't help but laugh at his own joke. Well, it was thinking of the Springer show; it always reminded him how truly stupid people could be, especially if it was on camera.  
  
It had the desired effect. Osiris backed up a couple of steps, eyes widening even more, to the point where they looked like they might fall out. "You are deranged."  
  
Bob shrugged with his hands, giving him a smile he knew was vacant and creepy. "Nah. I'm Bob. I'm one of you guys, remember?"  
  
Sy scrutinized him like something he had scraped off the bottom of his shoe after a visit to one of the more noxious hell dimensions. "You are not one of us, Bob. You were never one of us. You were a hideous accident of the Higher Realms."  
  
That just made him grin. "That's right - blow even more sunshine up my kilt."  
  
"If I do what you wish, never come here again." It sounded like a demand, but Bob knew it was a plea.  
  
Poor Sy. What could it be like to be a death god who was so easily freaked out? Bob bet he was squeamish too, and how the hell did he revel in the dead if he was? Ah, gods were just so fucked up. "Absolutely. An eternity length library isn't my idea of fun anyways."  
  
Osiris's eyes narrowed, until they were almost normal sized. "No - your idea of fun is being with lessers."  
  
Bob continued to smile at him, but leaned forward and lowered his voice to a whisper, as if imparting a great secret. "But when the Highers are you and Cammy, who wouldn't want to hang with the lowers, huh?" He then winked, as if it was a great joke, and got to see an unusual peach color rise to Sy's bloodless cheeks before Bob teleported himself out of there.  
  
Some death gods just had no sense of humor at all. 


	2. Part 2

3  
  
A sharp whistle made Logan jolt upright, muscles tensing and claws just itching to pop out.   
  
Marcus looked back at him over the front seat of the car. "Are you not sleepin' anymore, is that it?"  
  
It took him a moment to get re-oriented, but then Logan remembered where he was. In Marcus's rental car, on the way to meet his client at a private airstrip in British Columbia. He had cleaned up last night, but didn't feel much better today; he still felt like he was running on helium, not blood.  
  
Logan squinted at the sunlight bleeding through the windows, as it seemed as bright as a spotlight right now, stabbing back into his brain. Maybe this was what having a hangover was like, except he didn't have hangovers. He was pretty sure you needed to get drunk first. "So we're here?" He asked, as his eyes adjusted.  
  
Marcus, being his usual smart ass self, looked around before answering. "Sure looks like it, yeah. You been asleep since we left; you even slept through my award winning rendition of the Theme From Shaft."  
  
"I could kick myself for missing that."  
  
"So what is it? You join a religion that prohibits sleep?"  
  
Logan sighed heavily, and gave him an evil look that he hoped clearly conveyed "Drop it". "I'm goin' for a world record. Are we gettin' out, or are we just gonna sit here 'til we melt?"  
  
Marcus shook his head, smirking as he opened his door. "I love going places with you, bud. You're like a blast of happiness, straight up the ass."  
  
"I wouldn't know," he grumbled, fumbling for the door handle. "I've never had a happiness enema."  
  
He vaguely recalled last night, but Marc told him the client was an old one of his, Toshiro "Tony" Tagawa, a "rich old dude" who made his money as the co-founder of a Japanese electronic toy company. (Marcus couldn't tell him if he made those annoying toy robot dogs - if he did, that was an offense worth killing over.) According to Marcus, "Tony" usually hired him for "private detective like shit", as he'd once hired a P.I. that was apparently a con artist, and he's never trusted them since. When Logan exclaimed in disbelief, "And he trusts mercenaries?" Marc pointed out that Tony had a simple philosophy about that: "Mercenaries do what they are told to do if they want their payment." That was perfectly logical, and he saw how Tony probably was pretty sharp, as Marcus had indicated.  
  
Marcus had a problem, though. He liked Tony as a client, wanted to keep him, and had agreed to meet him here five days in advance. But the day before yesterday, he got a call from an even bigger client with a mission more immediate and personal to Marcus - doing some possibly destructive industrial spying on a genetics company in Liechtenstein. "Something exists in Liechtenstein?" Logan asked in disbelief.  
  
According to him, a lot of stuff existed there; it was a haven for "shell" corporations, businesses that existed only on paper, and were used mainly to funnel and launder drug money and service the illegal weapon trade, as well as serve as tax dodges for overseas companies that wished to stash away some profits away from the prying eyes of Uncle Sam. Marc said there were more businesses registered in Liechtenstein than there were people.  
  
There were some businesses with an actual physical presence there, and that included Ursprung Pharmazeutik Limited (Genesis Pharmaceutics, translated from German - and didn't that sound suspicious?), a German based company working on new gene therapy techniques. "They're exploiting mutants," Marcus told him confidentially, over a much higher quality beer. (It did appear they were in a gay bar, though - certainly Marc's idea of a joke.) "It looks like they've been trying to use mutant genes to engineer various therapies, which would be fine if they got consent and didn't lie about it to the public, but my client in this case is a representative of the European Union who has no desire to lose patents and money when U.P. goes public with mutant derived gene therapies, not to mention the potentially devastating p.r. fallout if the news of using mutant genes to treat "normal" people gets out."  
  
"So human rights has nothing to do with it, huh?"  
  
Marcus laughed so hard he almost shot beer out his nose. "Oh yeah, sure it does," he said, choking on his drink. As soon as he was done with that, he said, "I go get concrete evidence to nail the suckers, and this guy with the EU plans to blackmail them into shutting down quietly, as to not to cause a scandal. I really want to do this, but I can't just brush off Tony, 'cause he's a good client who always pays well, and is really generous in his definition of "expenses"."  
  
"So you want me to spot you, is that it?"  
  
He nodded. "I should send you into U.P. - just think of all the little happy dances the scientists will break into when they realize they found a mutant with a pandemic healing ability. They could stop all their work and just send vials of you out."  
  
"I think that's been done," he noted sourly, then asked, "So what the fuck do I get out of this?"  
  
"Half the money," Marc replied, then gave him that toothy grin again. "Nah, all of it. Unless you really can't use ten thousand dollars."  
  
Logan was roughly certain that was another joke. "Ten thousand?"  
  
"Actually, that's just my base rate. It'll probably be more, based on the job."  
  
"But if I don't like the sound of the job, I won't take it. I'm not agreeing to anything."  
  
Marcus only shrugged. "Sure, however you want to play it."  
  
Still, Logan was sure Marc had no intention of letting him off that easy - why would he have hunted him down in Manitoba otherwise? But Logan intended to get out of it. Ten thousand was a lot of money ("The easiest money you'll ever make," Marcus had claimed, trying to sell it), but what good was money? What good was any of it? Would it bring Jean back from whatever hell she was in?  
  
The meet was on a private airstrip in B.C. because Tagawa was very "security conscious", and on his way back from a board meeting in Tokyo (he lived most of the year in Vancouver). Marc had a special magcard though, and as soon as the gate guard ran it through the scanner, the whole staff was deferential to them, and they had no problem getting through any gate.  
  
It was a cool day, but the sun was unmercifully bright, and Logan still had to squint more than he generally liked as they crossed the tarmac towards the slim bodied blue and white private Lear Jet, leaving the rental Lexus far behind. "Oh yeah, I found this, and thought you might get as much of a kick out of it as I did," Marcus said, reaching in the pocket of his leather trench coat and pulling out a folded piece of paper. He handed it to him, and Logan took it with some reluctance.  
  
He unfolded it and realized it was a book page, and wanted to cuss him out for defacing a book, but resisted the urge. The page must have come from a demon dictionary of some kind, as it had a couple of definitions of Belial demons. The first was the one he'd heard before, "liar demons", but the second and third were new to him. The second said Belials were demons of destruction and fornication (!), sensual and lazy, while the third said Belial was an alternate name for Satan. "Didn't Bob say that's what he was? A Belial demon?" Marcus asked.  
  
"Yeah. Except I think it was more he was trapped or incarnated in a Belial body, or something like that."  
  
"Yeah, but that means he's at least part fuck demon, right?"  
  
Logan couldn't help but snort a laugh. "Fuck demon. Who knew there was such a thing. And why doesn't he advertise it?"  
  
"What, that he's a demon in the sack? I know I would, but who knows? He looks like the type of guy who has no trouble getting laid - hell, I'd do him. But if I had to be a demon, I'd wanna be the fuck demon."  
  
Logan handed the paper back to him, but Marc waved for him to keep it. "Show that to Bob next time you see him. I'd love to hear his explanation for that."  
  
He almost told him that he didn't plan to see Bob for a damn long time, but he didn't feel like talking about it, so he crammed the torn page in the back of his jeans. He'd surely forget about it in no time, and - knowing him - it'd be too bloody to be legible soon enough.   
  
(Satan was supposedly a god, wasn't he?)  
  
The stairs lowered automatically on the jet as soon as they were within ten feet of the plane, but the door didn't slide open until Marcus reached the first step. A huge man in a dark suit who just screamed hired muscle blocked the doorway, though, his meaty arms crossed across his front, hands hanging down in front of his crotch. From the way his left arm hung, Logan knew his shoulder holster was on that side. He probably had a gun in a back holster too, and perhaps another in an ankle holster; but they weren't here to fight, so he had no idea why he was sizing the guy up.  
  
"Mister Drury," the man said emotionlessly, his voice betraying the hint of an Israeli accent.  
  
"Ehud," Marcus responded politely. "This is my associate, Logan."  
  
(What, not "guy I'm trying to pawn this off on"?)  
  
Ehud? Definitely Israeli, probably former Mossad, as a lot of them went into private security as soon as they got out. Anyone who survived a long tour of duty in either the Israeli secret service or army was probably a bad ass you didn't want to mess with, and once again proved Tagawa was smart in his choice of security.  
  
Ehud - who had a blank face, eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses - simply nodded, and didn't move from the door until Marcus was about to walk into him. Logan knew he was watching him as he came in, but obviously Marc had some cache among Tagawa's security staff, as he did nothing but just stand back and watch.  
  
They left Ehud to close the door and otherwise guard against terrorists, and Marc led him back into the main cabin, which was done in calming shades of sky blue and cream.   
  
It wasn't as luxuriously appointed as Logan had been expecting; it was mainly an open cabin, with wall to wall azure carpeting, and four plush blue seats - more like home recliners than anything you'd find on a commercial airplane, with lots of open space between then. A small, slender Japanese man with stately silver hair stood up as they came in, and bowed deeply at the waist. Logan found himself bowing in return on pure reflex; Marcus didn't, but since he was behind Marc, he probably missed it. "Hello, Mister Drury," Tony Tagawa said, straightening up. He spoke English with a Canadian accent. "Thank you for your promptness. "  
  
"Konnichiha," Logan said, only aware he'd spoken Japanese after he said it.  
  
Tagawa smiled politely. "Konnichiha."  
  
Marcus gestured to him, and said, "This is my associate, Logan. He may take over for me in this case."  
  
There was the slightest flinch visible on Tagawa's face before he smothered it, but that bothered Logan. "Is there a problem, Tagawa-san?" Again, he was speaking Japanese. He really had to stop that. Even Marcus gave him a strange look out of the corner of his eye.  
  
"It's just a silly superstition in my family," the man said, gesturing to the seats across from him. "Logan is considered an … inauspicious name."  
  
Logan had no intention of asking, but Marcus, who threw himself in the chair closest to the aisle (of course he was going to leave him the more potentially dangerous window seat), asked, "Why?"  
  
Logan waited until Tagawa took his seat before sitting down, and he had no idea why. "It's a … story in my family. A mononoke named Logan supposedly wiped out the Takabe and Yashida crime families some time ago."  
  
"Mononoke?" Marc asked, and looked rather pointedly at him, not Tony. It didn't take a genius to put it together.   
  
"Vengeful ghost," Logan admitted reluctantly.   
  
Tagawa nodded in agreement. "They say he was murdered by the families, and came back to seek revenge."  
  
"Murdered, huh?" Marcus was still staring at him out of the corner of his eye, and Logan desperately wanted to punch him. "I'm not a big believer in ghosts."  
  
"Nor I," Tagawa replied. "It's just a story in the family."  
  
"How long ago was this?" Marcus wondered.  
  
"How do you know that?" Logan interjected suspiciously. "I wouldn't think a story like that would circulate outside the crime families."  
  
Marcus's inquisitive stare became angry (good), as he didn't want to piss off his client. But Tagawa dipped his head in acknowledgement, a weak smile on his face. "My family was not always legitimate. There were some Yakuza connections in the past, I fear."  
  
"But no longer?" He didn't care what the gig was - he was never going to work for a Yakuza.  
  
He shook his head. "No. The profit never overcomes the losses."  
  
Smart man. Actually, he almost liked Tagawa; he had a sort of grace and dignity you didn't find in many people, let alone business executives, and seemed to radiate the quiet serenity of a man who could sleep without a raging conscience getting in the way. There were very few wrinkles on his slender face, but his dark and lively eyes suggested he was in his sixties at least. He was still sharp, though, still a man you wouldn't want to toy with.  
  
"Would you like a drink?" Tagawa asked politely.  
  
"No, thank you," Logan replied on their behalf. Maybe Marcus did, but he didn't care; he just wanted to get this over with. "We should probably get down to business."  
  
"Indeed," he agreed, steepling his hands on his lap. "What I need is for someone to go to Japan, and find a valuable family heirloom for me."  
  
Talk about an anti-climax. Even Marc, who'd probably been expecting something like this, seemed slightly nonplussed. "Uh, okay. What kind of heirloom are we talking about? Do you have any idea where it might be?"  
  
"It's a sword, nicknamed Raifu-Kisei."  
  
Logan studied the man suspiciously, glad the shade was drawn on the window next to him. It was hard to scrutinize a man with the sun in your eyes. "Life/death?"  
  
"It is - " he grimaced in embarrassment, dark eyes flicking down to the carpet. "It is yet another superstition. It's believed to be enchanted."  
  
"How so?" Marcus asked.  
  
Logan watched a muscle work in the man's jaw, under skin as thin as parchment. His refusal to meet their eyes suggested a deep shame. "I do not know which of the stories linked to it are true, but supposedly it can resurrect the dead."  
  
Logan felt a twinge in his gut. Bring back the dead? Seriously? "Life/death - gives life to death?"  
  
Tagawa nodded, still not meeting their eyes. In Westerners, that would be a sign of lying, but he knew in this case it was simply embarrassment. "This is truly silly. I am not a superstitious man, although my ancestors were. I don't believe the fairy stories attached to the sword, but many have, and people have died for it. It was believed destroyed for decades, but I have word from very reliable sources that it still exists, and is somewhere in Tokyo, possibly among antiquities dealers who have no idea what they have. I would look for it myself, but I haven't the time, and frankly … "  
  
"This embarrasses you," Logan said for him. "Not your family or its heirlooms, but the stories attached to it; Raifu-Kisei's legacy."  
  
He nodded, and gave him that wan smile again, this time looking up and meeting his eyes again. "I sense you have a great understanding of my culture, Mister Logan."  
  
Logan knew if he shifted uncomfortably he'd give himself away to Marcus, so he forced himself to sit stock still. "It's just Logan."  
  
He dipped his head in acknowledgement. "As you wish."  
  
"So, that's it? You just want us to hit the antique stores of Tokyo and buy your sword back?" Marc seemed truly baffled about this, but Logan knew the real score here. Tagawa wanted them to get it not only because it was part of his family's treasures (and Marcus obviously didn't understand how important relics could be to the Japanese people), but because he feared some of the talk around the sword could have indeed been true. Which also meant, if word was out - and there was some legitimate mojo done on the sword - some others might want it; some non-human others.  
  
(Would it work on Jean? If it worked - if it was as advertised - could it help him get her back?)  
  
(Would it even work on someone as long dead as Mariko?)  
  
Tagawa looked down again, and clasped his hands together, interlacing slender fingers that had seen their share of physical labor. Nothing about Tagawa was soft, and Logan always liked that in a person. "I fear it may not be as easy as that."  
  
"Ah," Marcus said, sinking back in his seat. Now he felt more at home. "What's the complication?"  
  
"There are many. One, I would like to bring it here, to my Vancouver home, but the government may not allow me to do that."  
  
"Why? It's yours, ain't it?"  
  
"National treasure," Logan told him, answering for Tagawa. "How old is this sword? Was it crafted by a famous katanakaji ?"  
  
That was the Japanese name of a swordsmith, and he hoped Marcus knew what a katana was, and could guess the rest. "I do not know. It's rumored to be four hundred years old, but I believe it to be closer to two hundred."  
  
Marcus let out a low whistle, and Logan figured four hundred could be an actuality, if some mojo had been done to the sword. But he didn't say anything, because it seemed that Tagawa didn't wish to discuss the possible mystical connotations of the artifact. "Wow, so that sucker was forged well, huh?"  
  
"It would seem so," Tagawa agreed.  
  
"Do I trust that the sky's the limit as far as buying it back goes?" Logan asked.  
  
Tagawa nodded. "Price is no object. It's a part of my family history, and there is little that still exists."  
  
Now Logan was fairly certain that others had to be after it; if money was no object, there was a lot of money being thrown around. "You covering all expenses?"  
  
"Of course. You will have use of one of my corporate jets, as I doubt you could get the sword through airport security, no matter its status."  
  
"I doubt I could get through airport security," Logan riposted.  
  
That made Tagawa smile. "Yes, your line of work."  
  
Well, no, he wasn't a mercenary, but he didn't bother to correct him. If he wanted to think it was because he was packing heat (as opposed to having a metal skeleton), fine with him.  
  
Tagawa sat forward, resting his hands on his knees. "If I paid you twenty five thousand up front, would you be willing to leave for Tokyo by tonight?"  
  
Tagawa was looking at him, not Marcus. Either he'd caught the gist that Marc was trying to pass the job off, or it was simply because he was sharp enough to catch his interest in it.   
  
"Full payment of fifty thou?" Marc asked, always the businessman.  
  
Tagawa dipped his head. "And expenses, as well as access to my corporate account to cover expenses and open certain doors. Is that acceptable?"  
  
Marcus didn't answer, he simply looked at him too, waiting for an answer. Logan knew that was a fucking buttload of cash - how many drunks would he have to beat the shit out of to make that kind of money? - but what good would money do him? He could get money; it never helped him. And it was in fucking Japan, for Christ's sake - it had nothing but bad memories for him right now. If he was smart, he'd say no and walk away.  
  
But …  
  
What if the sword was the real deal? What if it did do what it claimed? What if it was so mystically charged even Bob would flinch?  
  
(What if he could use it in some way - barter it even, he didn't care - to bring Jean back? To free her?)  
  
He didn't want Tagawa's money; absolutely none of this mattered. All he wanted was the sword.   
  
Logan grunted, and nodded in acquiescence. "I'm in."  
  
4  
  
Helga picked up the remains of a table leg off the bar, and said, "Lia's gonna kill you."  
  
Bob took a gulp from his can of iced tea, and shrugged. "It won't be the first time. Besides, if she kills me, who pretends to pay the bills?"  
  
She made a gesture that seemed to say "Whatever", and stopped playing with the debris piled up on the far end of the bar. Instead, she perched on a stool well away from it all, and gave him a skeptical look. "Why did you let Logan do this?"  
  
Bob scoffed, trying to laugh it off, as he positioned the new tables just so. He couldn't remember the exact lay out of the tables at the Way Station - he embraced chaos theory as a lifestyle - but this looked close enough. "Does anyone let Logan do anything? He's the most fucking stubborn bastard this side of you and me - he does what he wants."  
  
She made a throat clearing noise that meant he was in such big trouble it wasn't funny. "Bob, need I point out you're the Lizard King? You can make anyone do anything! You're about the only person I know that can stop Logan dead, and you don't even have to put down your beer."  
  
The fact that he was cleaning up after all this time was his fault. He left Lau in charge of doing it to do some more hands on research, but, as it turned out, Lau's idea of cleaning up was shoving all the debris in one corner, and propping up an unconscious Laran demon to block the hole in the wall. Although he couldn't help but be annoyed by him, Bob could hardly blame him - he supposed he would have done much the same thing, if he couldn't conjure stuff up or away. They had all lucked out that Lia was away on vacation, or she surely would have shoved them through a meat grinder, or at the very least hit them with Thrakazog. But Lia was due back in two days, and if she figured out the place had been trashed in her absence, she'd definitely have something of a hissy fit. And Lia's hissy fits often ended with the authorities being involved.  
  
"Logan needed to vent," he finally admitted, deciding to have a seat himself. He wasn't cut out for interior decorating by memory. "He was seething with pain, Hel. It was like she had just died again, and he couldn't bear it. He needed to get it out before he exploded, and I figured inanimate objects were better than people; he could have killed an entire army. And he didn't trash the whole place."  
  
Her tail flicked back and forth impatiently as she continued to try and figure out how much of this was lies and how much was truth. She wore a black t-shirt that was tight enough to flatter her form, and low riding hiking shorts that still showed off what nice green legs she had. If the bar had been open to the public, everyone would have been buying her drinks and trying to look down her blouse.  
  
"Bob, hon, you're full of shit."  
  
"I know. But I swear I'm bein' honest here. He needed to get it out before he hurt someone."  
  
Her tail continued its metronomic twitching as her green eyes narrowed. "But he didn't get it all out, did he? He stormed off in a huff about what, two weeks ago? Have you seen him since?"  
  
He shook his head. "No, but he needs time alone, time to decompress. "  
  
"From what? Knowledge that Cammy probably fucked over Red?"  
  
"That, and the data dumped in his head."  
  
Her tail wrapped around her can of beer and she hoisted it up, but paused with the can half way to her mouth. "Data? What?"  
  
"The Jean thing dumped a lot of stuff in his head. I couldn't get a good look at it, as it was still highly charged and running at a different energy frequency, but I got some glimpses of fighting Fenrir - Jean's memories."  
  
"But if it's at a different frequency, he can't access them, right?"  
  
"For now."  
  
She raised a jade eyebrow at him, and gave him a look that meant, had he been anyone else, he'd be drinking his meals through straws from now on. "You are explaining that before I kneecap you, yes?"  
  
"Remember how he adapted to my energy on the hell plane? Same deal here - he'll adapt to the energy pattern."  
  
"And then what?"  
  
Bob hated to do it, but he had to shrug. He really had no idea. Best case scenario, he'd simply be able to make sense of all the jumbled imagery in his head. Worse case scenario … oh hell no, he wasn't even going to contemplate that. He'd burn that bridge if they came to it, but until then, there was no point in worrying about it.  
  
What else could he do? Sometimes even a supposed "Higher" had to admit they were fucked. 


	3. Part 3

"Do you have any idea what she - it - did to him?" Helga asked.  
  
Bob frowned, hating to even mention it. But considering how she felt about Logan, she had a right to know. "She interfered, mostly. I was hopin' to let Logan knock his own engineered personality out of existence and take control of his own mind again, but she musta butted in, 'cause I felt a forced synthesis."  
  
She considered that a moment, waggling the can back and forth ever so slightly in impatience. "So she fixed the problem for him? What was wrong with that?"  
  
"Why do you think I didn't do it that way? Look, there's something that most people forget, and yes, I'm guilty of this too, but the fact is … Logan's a victim. He has been violated and fucked over in every way that's humanly possible, and in some ways that are inhumanly possible. Maybe it would be easier to remember if his scars were showing, and he wasn't full to bursting with macho bravado, but god, Hel, he's been hurt so badly. If he wasn't the toughest bastard this side of a t.v. dinner Salisbury steak, he'd still be a gibbering wreck unable to leave the crawlspace. And on top of all that, he's been ravaged, and there are some things he really needs to do for himself. He needed to face his own demon and take care of it, for the sake of his own confidence."  
  
"Sweetie, he's pretty goddamn confident."  
  
"But not in the way that I mean. This confidence was internal, and not the "I can kick everything's ass" confidence he has in abundance; that's just a physical fact, and no matter how he's been fucked up, he's going to believe that to be true, 'cause it pretty much is. I'm talking about the personal kind of confidence in other things, especially emotional confidence. He's pretty raw there, but a lot of that is trying to conquer his own fear; he just throws himself head long, figuring he'll feel better once he hits the ground. I was hopin' claiming his mind back for himself would help there."  
  
"But the engineered personality is gone, so that's good, right?"  
  
He was forced to shrug. "It's good in that it's gone. It's bad that Logan wasn't the one to take care of it."  
  
"So what's gonna happen because of it?"  
  
"Probably nothing. But see, if he'd taken care of all of this himself, there might have been a change. As it is, he's still at the mercy of powers greater than him."  
  
"I still think you worry too much, old man," she told him. "Logan can take it; he can take a lot."  
  
"But just because he can, should he?" He replied, then sighed and sagged back into his chair. "I sound all new age-y, don't I?"  
  
"Just a bit. See, that's why you need to start on the beer early in the day."  
  
"I suppose so." Maybe this wouldn't bother him as much as it did if Jean - or whatever - would just get in contact with him. But her/its continued avoidance of him (and use of Logan as some kind of conduit) made him more and more suspicious. Was it consolidating its power? Was it/her simply afraid to face him, for fear of him doing something to them?   
  
Was Camaxtli playing some sort of game with all of them?  
  
Until he found her, he wouldn't know, but he hoped Logan didn't pay even more of a price for it.  
  
5  
  
He didn't much care for views outside airplane windows - all places looked more or less the same from the air, daisy chains of lights on irregular or flat topography of desert tan, furrowed fields brown, foliage green, and human habitation gray and white - but looking out at the endless expanse of the Pacific Ocean beneath him was always awe inspiring. Serene right now, it was just a flat field of blue, made more attractive by the glimmering fragments of light bestowed on it by the crescent moon they seemed to be racing across the world. But just thinking about watching this blue blanket slide right beneath him like a bolt of silk, he wondered exactly when he had seen it before. Well, coming back from Japan after he and Scott had picked up Nariko, but he couldn't recall looking out of the jet. So why did it seem so familiar?  
  
He decided not to think about it.  
  
Logan sat back, and studied the charcoal sketch (that looked like a rubbing, miniaturized) of the sword that Tagawa had given him. There were no photos of it, but the rendering was extremely detailed, focusing on the bits that mattered the most. The handle was very distinct, and should have been easy to find: filigreed ivory and bone over leather and metal, with a dragon's head carved in silver near the hasp, with small rubies inset in its eyes. The blade itself had a sketch of a long, snake like dragon on its right side, but since it wasn't etched in (that might have damaged the blade), it was possible it no longer existed. Even in the sketch it looked beautiful, an ornate and lovely piece of swordsmithing. It was a craft, one mostly lost to time, but a quality sword wasn't easy to make, and he was sure the blade even retained its edge. He couldn't help but notice it had the slightest curve to it, but much more subtle than his claws. Still, it told him this was not a ceremonial sword, or one made for display; this had been made to cut and to kill. But then again, it was called Life/Death, was it not? Some time - perhaps before it was enchanted (if indeed it was), it must have delivered death more than anything else.  
  
It occurred to him he had an obscene amount of money and a corporate jet at his disposal, so shouldn't he be … what, excited? Happy? Enthusiastic at the very least? Awake? He figured he dozed off sometime shortly after take off, but he couldn't remember; it was almost like there was no transition between sleeping and waking anymore. He knew that was a bad sign.  
  
He did find himself unable to look away from the sketch once he started looking at it. It was beautiful in a way that he couldn't describe, and it called him to a way that he couldn't explain. In some small part of his brain, he knew that was a sign that this thing really must have had some big magic thrown on it, for good or evil, if it could somehow "get" to him through a piece of paper. But at least Logan was confident he would know this sword when he saw it. Then again, if it had a "call', he would be far from the only one to hear it. But that's why he was being paid the big bucks, right? To fight off everyone else.  
  
Assuming it was still in Tokyo. Assuming it was in one piece.  
  
There were so many "ifs" in this scenario, he knew if he was in his right mind, he'd never even consider taking on something like this. But he wasn't sure he'd ever been in his right mind, and, if so, it wasn't true anymore, so hey - free and clear.  
  
He forced himself to slide the sketches back in the portfolio and close it up, as he was certain he would not need to take them with him. He would know the sword when - if - he found it.  
  
Looking out the window once more, he saw the glow of electric lights picking out the coastline and body of the island that was Japan. The plane flew low enough that he could see the warm orange glow of the paper lanterns on old fashioned fishing boats, and the newer, harsh blue-white glow from lights on the more current ships; underneath the shine, the water looked as black as ink.  
  
It was strange how familiar Japan seemed to him. He assumed it was due to all the time he spent here with Mariko (never mind that he couldn't remember any of it), but he wasn't actually sure. He had a sinking feeling in his gut that he had been here before that, but he had nothing to back that up. Then again, he had nothing to back up anything, just an adamantium skeleton and nightmares that left him wishing he could die. It was no way to live.  
  
Didn't Bob - at some point - tell him he had to find a new way to live? The way he felt right now, he never wanted to admit that Bob had a point, but he supposed he did. He had to learn to live like this, or find another way.  
  
As the plane glided towards the neon lit city of Tokyo, Logan wondered which option he would choose.  
  
6  
  
Scott was certain he had pulled it off.  
  
There was detritus about, sure, but otherwise the room appeared perfectly empty. Oh thank god.  
  
He'd opened the refrigerator to retrieve the soy milk (black coffee was usually too bitter - how could something that smelled so good taste so terrible?) and stuck his head inside when he thought he heard a now familiar noise. It was a noise impossible to describe, although Rogue had said it sounded like "someone squeezing a tube sock full of Jello". He'd never heard that particular noise before, but he believed her.  
  
"Rampaging hyenas gone?" Cressida said, as soon as she had formed a mouth.  
  
He groaned, and briefly rested his forehead against a cold metal shelf in the refrigerator. Cressida "Chameleon" Santiago, one of Logan's old Organization assassin buddies, was proving to be a right pest. Xavier found her somewhat fascinating for two reason: he couldn't read her very well, if at all, due to her unique physiology, which was the second thing that fascinated him. She was completely morphogenic, with a body more liquid than solid; quite literally, she had no bones, except for what she created for herself. A further peculiarity of her physical condition (the Professor said it was like she was in a constant - yet stable - state of molecular flux at all time - and it had occurred to him Jean would have found her fascinating) allowed her to move even when in her "liquid" form, so when she wanted to avoid people without the bother of assuming a truly physical form, she would travel around as a snake made of water. It allowed her to slip under doors and in between cracks (as well as "go liquid" to avoid injuries), and Scott understood how devastating she must have been as an assassin.  
  
And what a killer she was. The other day, much to his horror, he found her in the danger room, teaching the older kids how you crippled and killed various types of opponents, and took out weapon systems and power grids. And that was added to a list of offenses that included smoking in the mansion (she didn't have a stable set of lungs to damage), going in and out as she pleased all hours of the day and night, and cursing like a sailor - in other words, acting like Logan. Which - predictably - led the kids to liking her as much as Logan. He had no idea what he was going to do with these kids.  
  
Or her. He really wished she'd be like Spider and decide to try and return to her old life (he'd gone back to England several days ago), but so far she showed no sign of leaving. She'd even stopped talking about it, which made him really nervous.  
  
"What have I asked you about not sneaking up on people like that?" He said, pulling his forehead away from the shelf. It stung, and he realized he'd almost ripped off a layer of skin. Well, duh - cold metal and skin didn't really match.  
  
Once he let the refrigerator door shut behind him and slammed the carton of soy milk on the counter, he saw her standing by the kitchen sink, back in her small Latina guise. Her basically liquid structure allowed her to be any size she wanted to be: tall, short, skinny, heavy set, male or female (or neither), but she seemed to go back to this one with some regularity. Maybe it was what she looked like before she started going into flux.  
  
"How can you drink that stuff, man?" She said, and he wasn't sure if she was gesturing to the soy milk or his coffee. "It's disgusting."  
  
No one ever saw her eat or drink. Presumably she did it in private, and perhaps for good reason - he could not imagine how her constantly altering digestive system worked. Maybe she didn't even need to eat like a normal person. If she gained or lost weight, how could you ever tell?  
  
He simply sighed, pouring the milk into his coffee. "Don't change the subject."  
  
"I'm not. I wasn't sneaking; how was I supposed to know you were in here? I was just trying to avoid the rugrat stampede."  
  
Th kids loved her, and yet, behind their backs, she always referred to them in a derogatory manner. Clearly, she didn't like kids. He wasn't sure if she liked anything, save for destroying things. "You know, if living with a crowd bothers you so much - "  
  
"I know, I know, I'm lookin' for places, okay? I'm just trying to figure out what I need, ya know?"  
  
Actually, he didn't, but he nodded just to spare himself further explanation. "I imagine it's difficult after what you came from."  
  
She let out a derisive snort, and he glanced away from stirring the milk in his coffee, watching it turn from dark brown to a pale tan. The early morning sun was behind her, so it was hard to see her face, especially since she always seemed vaguely translucent around the edges, like a statue made of ice. "You know, I know you felt you and Logan got a raw deal from the Org - and I know he did - but until they left me to die I was good with them, ya know? They didn't have to brainwash me or anything, and unlike Spider I have nothing to return to. My father was a very wealthy man, and he made it clear there would be no filthy mutants in his family - that's why he paid a buttload of money to a questionable clinic far from home, so they could "cure" me of my hideous disease. I was not coming home unless I was cured or dead. So when the Org said, "Hey, filthy mutant? Good! Come work for us," I was all over that. Maybe I had to do things I didn't necessarily like, but hey, they paid me, they gave me a home and a reason to live - that was good enough for me."  
  
Scott was torn between feeling pity for her, and feeling angry at her. He could see how, with a mutation as extreme as hers, her family might find it hard to accept her. But on the other hand, she sold her soul away voluntarily to an organization that used murder as a matter of course, and thought nothing of torturing and killing fellow mutants. "Is that an excuse?" He finally asked, more curious than anything else.  
  
She made an obscene gesture with her hand. "I don't make excuses. I made my choice, and I can live with it."  
  
Maybe that was what she was getting at. "And you don't know how to live without it?"  
  
She made a noise he couldn't interpret and turned away to stare out the window, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. He guessed that he had hit the nail right on the head there.   
  
After a moment of silence, when he sipped his coffee and discovered it was far too milky (damn it, she threw him off), she asked, "How does Logan do it?"  
  
"Do what?" He asked warily. He was still uncomfortable turning his back on her, even to search the cupboards for some sugar. She'd never made any hostile moves towards him or anyone (well, there was that one time she chased the kids down the hall in the form of Freddy Krueger, after they had watched Nightmare on Elm Street, but she claimed it was just a joke - and while the kids were screeching in terror, most had a laugh about it), but he knew from seeing her in the danger room that she was efficiently lethal. In a way, he wished she'd meet up with Mystique; Cressida would kick her ass. And, just from a visceral standpoint, that might be pretty neat to see.  
  
"Live with this? Or not? Whatever he does."  
  
He was tempted to say, "Well, having no conscience is a big help," but not only was that snarky, it could cause trouble if she actually considered Logan a friend (or teammate, or whatever). And he didn't want to keep having a conversation with her; he wanted to get his coffee and go. "I don't know," he said, relieved he could finally turn towards her. Not that he could hurt her - she could probably morph around the beam.   
  
As he stirred sugar into the murky mess of his coffee, she sighed, and asked, "So which one of you offed Stryker?"  
  
God, she was cheerful. "I don't know." He couldn't even remember seeing the man after being brainwashed, or whatever had happened to him. "Logan was the last one to see him, I think."  
  
She grunted a dark snort of laugh, gloating and bitter all at once. "Now that's quality karma. I hope Logan fricasseed him. For all the shit that Stryker piled on him, Wolverine deserved to kill him."  
  
He really didn't want to continue this conversation, and yet curiosity got the better of him once more. "Why Logan? I mean, why was Stryker so focused on him?"  
  
He wasn't sure if she had shrugged her shoulders or simply altered her skin, letting it roll up her back like a wave on the water. "I heard a couple different things; I don't know which is true, if any of them. Supposedly Logan was like … not a friend exactly, maybe an underling, I don't know … that screwed him over or disappointed him or something. A ruined experiment, or maybe he just wouldn't do what he told him to do. Or, maybe he fucked around with his wife - you know how Wolverine seems drawn to women in doomed relationships."  
  
"I think you mean all women," he corrected.  
  
Perhaps he said it a tad too archly, as she glanced over her shoulder at him. She craned her neck at an impossible angle, suggesting she hadn't made the bones all that rigid. "Hit too close to the mark, Doctor J?"  
  
He actually had to look that nickname up. He knew it was a basketball player, but he didn't understand the why of it until he saw a photo of him wearing what looked like safety goggles on the court. He'd asked her to not call him that, but of course it didn't stop her. "Logan is a horndog." He took a sip of his coffee and grimaced. Now it tasted like sweet, milky mud. As soon as she was out of here, he was pouring it down the sink.  
  
She shrugged and looked away, out the window. "What about Oyama?"  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Oyama. Ever find out what the connection was between her and Logan?"  
  
He was pretty sure he'd heard her wrong. "There was a connection?" Well, she hit like a ton of bricks; that was very Logan like.   
  
"Again, I heard a couple of things, don't know if they're true or not. She may have gotten his healing factor - some of the white coats in England isolated his healing gene, you know. The problem was, it didn't really take with most mutants, and it could be a complicated process to be "re-engineered" like that, yet she seemed to have it. But there was some talk that maybe she was a relative of his."  
  
"A relative?" He put the cup down, so he didn't drop it.   
  
"Yeah, like his daughter or something."  
  
He felt a chill throughout his body, spreading as slowly as a stain. "His daughter?" He repeated the words numbly, like they meant nothing to him, because he didn't want her to pick up on the horror. She didn't look like Logan (thank god); she looked completely Asian. But then again, perhaps she only took after her mother …  
  
The thought that Logan looked too young to be her father was easily dismissible; no one knew how old he was, and he could very well be in his sixties for all they knew. And the fact that he was white and she was Asian didn't rule out a genetic connection either. (How perfectly fluent was he in Japanese? Scott found that creepy even when he first heard it for himself, how easily he could jump between English and Japanese without taking a breath, like both languages were second nature to him, and Logan knew Tokyo; he knew what streets led where, even though he admitted he didn't know how he knew, he just did. What if the reason Logan couldn't find any family in Canada was because they weren't in Canada? What if they were in Japan?)  
  
Scott knew he didn't hide his emotions well enough. She turned her head around, and then the rest of her body (now that was genuinely creepy), and studied him for a moment. "He killed her, didn't he?"  
  
He shook his head. "I don't really know. We got separated." Would Stryker have been evil enough to make Logan kill his own daughter? Well, yes, of course he would - the man was a monster. And that was just more evidence that Oyama may very well have been related to Logan somehow; the knowledge after the fact, that he may have killed the only family he had, would kill Logan, on the off chance that she did not succeed in doing so by then.  
  
There was something in Cressida approaching humanity, or maybe she did think of Logan as a comrade in arms, because a sudden, uncomfortable look caused her expression to twist, like she just bit into something unbearably sour. "I won't tell him if you won't."  
  
He nodded. "Deal." Yet if she was Logan's family, he had the right to know … but not until they could confirm it, one way or another. Logan had been through enough shit without having that thrown on him too, especially if it wasn't necessarily true.  
  
Oh man, how low had he sunk? He felt bad for Logan.   
  
He needed to have his head examined.  
  
7  
  
Part of the Ginza - especially the neon orgy known colloquially as "Electric Town" - was so gaudy it made Las Vegas look almost tasteful. Well, parts of it anyways.  
  
This section of Tokyo seemed to bleed neon from every pore, from every crack in the pavement and every blind window, like an electric toy sentient enough to demand attention twenty four hours a day. Colored lights bounced off the smoked glass panes of the near by towers, while electric signs - some easily twenty feet high - scrolled and danced at the top of tall buildings, hawking wares even when the stores themselves were closed. In this part of Tokyo, capitalism never slept; it never even stopped to take a breath.  
  
As he walked down the strangely immaculate sidewalks (well, not for Japan - for Japan they were almost neglected. For America, they were fucking sparkling), he wondered why the city planners had bothered to put in streetlights, save for the appearance of symmetry; he walked in a backwash of crimson and golden yellow light, crystal white and Belial blood blue. The streetlights were like distant candles, trying desperately to compete with klieg lights that spirited away all their brilliance.  
  
Spotlights shined out of ground level shop windows, highlighting wares for pedestrian approval. There was everything from designer suits and dresses to the sleekest new computer gadgets - many not yet available in the States - and digital video cameras so compact they looked like cellular phones. No prices were displayed, as that was tacky (ha!), but he knew with Tagawa's money behind him, he could probably buy this entire block, real estate and all. (Assuming Tagawa didn't already own all of it already.)  
  
It was night somewhere beyond this island of light, but not so late that the shops were closed; a few at the end of the block had shut for the night, but most were still ready for business, the windows glowing like fires meant to attract those lost at sea. The pedestrians sharing the sidewalk with him with mostly young Japanese, wearing "Western" fashions in odd combinations of styles (sixties miniskirts meeting late seventies punk, with hair mangled in some kind of horrible transporter accident) that was oddly endearing. But their uniformity in their attempts at trendy rebellion negated whatever point they were trying to make. They barely gave him a second glance, and they never stared - not just because it was unbelievably rude, but because it wasn't all that unusual to see gaijin in Electric Town; as the flame was to the moth, so was Electric Town to the tourist. But every now and then he felt a second backward glance, caught a glimpse of a reflection in one of the many shimmering windows, and knew some understood that he was no goddamn tourist.  
  
Tagawa had given him a name, a contact of his contact, who had a potential lead on the location of Raifu-Kisei. But this contact, Leyoshi, owned and ran - of all things - a rekoodoya (record store) named Erekutoronikkusaundo (basically, Electronic Sound), near the end of Electric Town. Logan wondered what the hell a record store clerk could know about this, but apparently he had valuable connections; his ear was tuned to far more than just music.  
  
Erekutoronikkusaundo was a little shop dwarfed on either side, by a huge electronics store and what looked like some kind of designer clothing warehouse, but its bright red and yellow sign with animated blue musical notes was probably visible from low earth orbit. He actually had to shade his eyes from the glow until they adjusted.  
  
As soon as he pushed open the door, he winced as his senses were assaulted on different fronts. The florescent overheads and neon fish and musical note lamps that lined high shelves on the side walls stung his eyes, while sandalwood incense clogged his nostrils, and Outkast hit his eardrums. He recovered as well, forging ahead, and barely earned a glanced from any of the three deliberately disaffected youth prowling the narrow aisles made up of racks and racks of discs (with a few tapes and even records, thrown in for nostalgia), clearly differentiated between Japanese and "other" (mainly Western music). All of the customers were currently males, none over nineteen, and all wearing their acne like scars of honor. (And one, very unwisely, was wearing a black beret canted at a supposedly roguish angle - who the hell told him that was a good look?)  
  
There was a check out stand, but there was no clerk currently behind it. Odd, especially at this time of night, and with customers so obviously here. A sound activated fiber optic lamp on top of the cash register seemed to bristle like a sea anemone in time with the bass coming from the speakers, painting the silvered metal counter with shadows the color of contusions.  
  
But that's when he started parsing the scents. Past the cloying sandalwood and acne cream, hair gel and deodorant body spray, cigarette and pot smoke, plastic and metal, there was … demon. Familiar demon, in fact - Ressiks. Those fucking copper allergic, lizard faced sons of bitches; they had beat him here.  
  
The scent was fresh too; so fresh, they may still have very well been on the premises. But where?  
  
There's was only one answer to that: Behind the door at the back of the store marked "Employees Only - Do Not Enter".  
  
He had to repress the urge to pop his claws as he quickly walked towards the back, wondering if there was anything left of Leyoshi left to save. 


	4. Part 4

The door didn't want to give when he pushed it, it felt like there was a weight against it, but one hard shove and he was through it. And for his effort, was greeted with an almost overwhelming stench of adrenaline tainted blood and fear drenched sweat. He heard liquid squelch beneath his boots, and a glance behind the door as it closed proved that he may have been too late.  
  
The body was of a stocky man in his thirties, with his throat ripped out and his left hand missing; blood had stained his mock Hawaiian print shirt and faded jeans black. His eyes were shut, and even in death there was an aspect of tension around him, like he knew he was going to die long before it ever happened. There was a chunky gold bracelet in a puddle of blood, and Logan assumed it slipped off his arm once his wrist was torn away.  
  
The Ressiks were no longer anywhere to be seen in this dark storeroom, but their scent was still fresh, as was this kill - they couldn't have gotten far. And if they'd left out the front, he'd have smelled the blood; they'd have tracked it behind them like mud. So there had to be another way out of here.  
  
He'd barely started his cautious walk through the darkened room when he felt a cool breeze, smelled car exhaust, and discovered how the Ressiks had gotten away.   
  
Behind the boxes and racks of CDs and other accessories, he found a service door leading into the alley, well hidden and armored. But by the broken door jamb on the floor, it had still been kicked in, and hung slightly ajar. He heard a scraping noise, but it was just a piece of paper in the alley beyond, propelled by the wind.   
  
But as he looked out the door, he could smell the rank odor of Leyoshi's blood on them, making a neon scent trail for him to follow into the gaudy night. And they hadn't gotten very far.  
  
The alley was really a loading zone that ran behind nearly all the buildings on this side of Electric Town, a place where the expensive baubles that overstuffed the racks could be smuggled out in secret, as if there was something inherently shameful in it. Although more coated in grit than the sidewalks on the "visible" side, as Logan stalked down the alley, he was peripherally aware that it was one of the cleaner back alleys he'd ever had the privilege to hunt someone down in.  
  
There was a single turn, a hard elbow bend that led onto a neighboring thoroughfare, and he was sure he'd find the Ressiks there; their scent got stronger, competing with the meaty smell of Human blood. Were they aware they were being followed? Were they preparing an ambush for him? He hoped so.  
  
He paused just before the bend, listening hard, trying to hear beyond the street noises, the bass throb of the record shop, and the kids on the opposite side of the street. He could smell them strongly, but heard absolutely nothing, save for the hint of breathing; oh yeah, they were waiting for him.  
  
Logan decided to walk blithely around the corner, a dumb asshole who didn't realize he was walking straight into a death trap. He was ready when a pair of meaty, scaled hands grabbed him around the neck and yanked him around towards the wall … and Logan instantly popped his claws and drove a fist straight into the gut of the suit clad lizard who had him. It wouldn't kill him, but boy would it hurt like a motherfucker.  
  
It must have, as he got the desired result. It made an "oof" of pain and released him, and Logan saw a silver suited blur lunging towards him from the opposite side. He simply spun into a kick and nailed the asshole in the side of his big, snaky head. But before he could turn back and decapitate the bastard he gutted, another snake boy at the end of the alley pulled a silvered Sig Sauer semi-auto out from beneath his Armani jacket, and said, in flawless Japanese, "Freeze, kung fu motherfucker."  
  
Logan almost felt like pointing out he wasn't sure he knew kung fu per se, but managed to suppress the urge. Instead, he just grinned humorlessly at him. "Is that supposed to scare me?"  
  
They were all big Ressiks - none were under six six - but the guy with the gun was the biggest of all at almost an easy seven feet. He was a dark green looking snake man with huge eyes the color of piss. "Macho little smart ass, are we?" He then noticed the claws coming out of his hand, and his slit pupils briefly widened. "What the fuck are you supposed to be?"  
  
The gutted guy straightened up, and Logan didn't even glance at him, just kept him in the corner of his eye. "A mutant killing machine," he said, and with a single quick slash, decapitated the Ressik next to him.   
  
The Ressik with the gun fired, and the bullet hit him in the leg, slicing through his thigh and bouncing off his adamantium lined femur. It stung, but the Ressik seemed mildly surprised he was still upright. "You've got some balls, meat bag. Do you have any idea who you're fucking with?"  
  
The other Ressik, who has seen the shooting and decapitation up close, began sidling towards the end of the alley, keeping out of slashing distance. "Where's the sword, Snake?" Logan asked, feeling the burning sensation in his thigh as the bullet wound closed. It was a shame the Ressik couldn't see it.  
  
Snake boy canted his head to the side, and moved the Sig Sauer up a bit, seemingly focused on his crotch. "Who sent you?" He asked.  
  
It was amazing how they were both ignoring each other, refusing to answer the questions. But in its way, that told him all he needed to know. "The Yakuza hires demons now?"  
  
He snorted derisively, which was a strange noise coming from a being that had no nose, just slits in the center of his face. "The Yakuza are pussies."  
  
A car pulled up on the street just behind him, a sleek black vehicle with dark tinted windows, and since Snaky didn't seem at all concerned, Logan figured that was his ride. He was planning to lunge at him the moment he turned towards the car, but the window lowered with an automatic hum, and he saw the tip of what looked like a spear poke out of the opening.  
  
Only when he heard a pneumatic "whoosh" did he realize that it was a spear gun.  
  
It was too late for him to move out of the way, or even slash it in mid-air; it punched straight through his stomach and hit him with enough force that he was thrown back against the back of the alley, the tip bursting through his back and burying itself in the wall.  
  
Oh fuck, did it hurt.  
  
"No one ever expects a spear gun," Snaky said, gloating. He still hadn't bothered to put away his more traditional gun. "Also, hurts like fuck, doesn't it, mutie?"  
  
Logan grabbed the body of the spear, preparing to yank it out of him and the wall, but fuck yeah, it hurt. He could feel blood trickling down into his crotch, down his leg, and it burned around the spear, as if his body was trying to heal around it. "Who are you?" He growled, just hoping to identify the new players on the field.  
  
Snake Boy edged closer, sighting the barrel of his weapon right between his eyes. "Wouldn't you like to know?"  
  
It was then there was a metallic thud - something heavy had just hit the car - and as soon as Snake boy spared a glance back, something exploded through his head, splattering his brackish black blood on Logan.   
  
It was a knife of some sort, that gleamed golden in the dim light; copper. A copper knife.  
  
Snake made a gurgling noise, the gun dropping from his limp hand, and he reached up to pull the knife out of his own softball sized eyeball, but that was all he could do; he collapsed to the pavement in a heap, stone dead.  
  
Logan could then see the remaining Ressiks were engaged in battle with a figure in black, who had already yanked the driver half way through the side window and left him hanging there, blood pouring out on the street. They were armed with another copper knife, judging from the occasional flashes of gold.   
  
Logan grabbed the spear, braced himself, and then, with a painful yell, yanked the spear out of himself and the wall. It hurt so much, his legs went rubbery, and black dots briefly exploded before his eyes, but he ignored it as best he could. His gut burned like it was on fire, and that special pain helped him stay conscious and angry.  
  
He tossed the bloody spear aside, and picked up the Sig Sauer as gunshots rang out, aimed towards his would be savior. The flashes of light revealed the location of the shooter across the street (did they have sniper coverage? Or was it just the guy who snuck out of the alley, deciding distance was better than anything else?), and he took aim and let off a few shots of his own. He must have hit him, as the firing stopped.  
  
Logan let the mysterious figure in black take out the rest of the Ressiks, so he could wrap an arm around his still healing gut and take a moment to try and breathe through the pain. Wasn't that supposed to work? So far, it seemed like total shit.  
  
As soon as the last Ressik was dead, Logan straightened up, and aimed the gun at the back of the woman's head. "Now, who the fuck sent you?"  
  
The figure turned around, and he saw for the first time it was a woman. A woman bleeding from what well may have been a bullet wound on the side of her head. But judging from her flashing yellow eyes, bulging forehead, and mouth full of tiny, jagged fangs, she could give a shit about bullets. "I was about to ask you the same thing," she said, licking her own blood off her teeth.  
  
Oh great. He hated vampires.  
  
8  
  
She knew that as soon as word of the sword got out, there'd be several groups after it, but she never anticipated there'd be mutants too.   
  
And what kind of mutant was he, anyways? The spear gun should have killed him, not to mention the whole pulling it out thing, but he never even lost his footing. The bleeding had slowed too; in fact, as she watched through a rip in his white (now mostly red) t-shirt, the skin knit together, and the gash sealed up perfectly, as if it had never been there at all. Holy fuck.  
  
And his blood; it smelled … strange. Human blood, without a doubt, but so clean … free of viruses and bacteria, the every day crap most people didn't even realize they had. She couldn't even smell what he'd last eaten in his blood (well, if you were alive long enough, you got some idea who was going heavy on the fatty foods, who was hitting the booze hard, just by the byproducts in their blood), his blood was … pure. Purer even than a newborn babies, although with a curious metallic undertone. How the hell was that even possible?  
  
She smelled no fear on him either; curiouser and curiouser. Hadn't he just been skewered by Ressiks? "Don't even consider it, Vampira," he growled, with a distinctive flat accent. American or possibly Canadian? She couldn't tell. "If you don't make trouble for me, I won't dust you."  
  
He must have seen on her face that she was eyeing him like a bottle of fine wine. But how good must his blood have tasted? Miraculously free of all the impurities of modern day living - or, indeed, living in general. She was dying to find out. "Is that a thank you?" She reverted to her normal face, and said it in English, just to test a theory.  
  
He raised an eyebrow at her. He was a very odd looking man, mostly due to his dark hair and his close cropped but seemingly wild beard, which made him look like a werewolf in the early phase of transformation. The blood that caused his shirt to discolor and cling to him like paint did seemingly reveal an almost inhuman physique, which could have gone to some degree of explaining why he had no fear of Ressiks - perhaps he was one of those super-strong mutants. Did that explain the blood? How? "Thanks for what?"  
  
It was her turn to quirk an eyebrow at him. "For saving your life."  
  
"You didn't."  
  
She retrieved one of her copper knives from the body of the nearest Ressik, but wasn't foolish enough to completely take her eyes off of him. She saw those knives in his hands, and there was a Ressik not far from him that had been neatly separated from its head. Those knives were pretty damn sharp. "Says the guy who was nailed to the wall."  
  
He snorted derisively, and tossed the handgun aside. He knew it would do no good against her, and this continued to prove her assumption he was far too blasé about the supernatural. But there was no fucking way he was a Watcher. "I got myself unstuck, honey. And maybe if you kept one alive, we coulda asked them what Leyoshi told 'em before they killed him."  
  
She feared that's why Fujimori's group was on the move. What else did they do but kill? "You don't know that much about Ressiks, do you? They're relatively immune to torture, and they don't talk."  
  
"Uh huh. Which gang are you working for? Vamps got your own?"  
  
"Hardly - I work for no one. What about you, demon hunter?"  
  
"I'm not a demon hunter, and I don't work for anyone either. Well, not technically."  
  
So that narrowed it down to mercenary, assassin, or psychopath - assuming he was telling the truth, but strangely, she believed he was. And all those options tracked; he was too cool and emotionally controlled to be anything but a professional. Which still made her wonder who had hired him. (She had to stop thinking about his blood … but it smelled so good … ) "Working for the Americans?"  
  
He shook his head in disgust. "Goddamn it, I'm Canadian, okay?" Like it was shameful to be considered American? Well, okay, perhaps.   
  
She had to blame his sweet smelling blood, because she found him vaguely fascinating. She'd met a few mutants in her time, and they were still scared of things like Ressiks, and her - and for good reason. But this Human wasn't showing any fear at all, or the slightest wavering of confidence. And who the hell would hire a conspicuous gaijin? Well, conspicuous or not, his power set seemed to be useful. She heard the loud roaring of a highly tuned engine far away, but getting closer. Damn it, someone must have seen her - it was sometimes difficult to track someone from the rooftops around here; they were either too low, too high, or too exposed. Tokyo was not built for expert skulking.  
  
(Damn, his blood smelled good.)  
  
"Well, Canadian, wanna get outta here, before the rest of Fujimori's crew get here?"  
  
His eyes were hazel green, and almost too sharp for a Human's. "Why should I care? Bring 'em on."  
  
Mister Macho. "There's Berserker enforcers on his crew, gaijin. I really don't think you want to hang around for that."  
  
He shrugged his shoulders. "So? Berserkers are easy to kill."  
  
She stared at him in disbelief. Was this Human for real? "Say what? Do you even know what a Berserker is?"  
  
His eyes narrowed, as if she had just insulted him. His head cocked in such a way that he might have heard the same car she did, but it was too far away for a Human to pick up the high pitched whine of its distinctive turbine engine. "Seven foot of ugly, black as oil, big hands, two tons of ugly, mostly teeth, smell like burning tires and sound like rusty chainsaws."  
  
"That's a very good description." Then she realized, "You can smell them?" Humans usually couldn't smell them.  
  
Those bright eyes of his narrowed further, until they were little more than slits. "I smell a lot of things. Undead included."  
  
His power set was getting more and more interesting. There was no way he was Yakuza, as they'd never bring a gaijin in, not even one as unique as him; besides, a Yakuza would never have that hair, or show up for battle alone, or in jeans and a t-shirt. He must have worked for a new player - but who? If he was a merc, there was no way a guy who could get speared and lived would be cheap. Did the mutants have their own organization? She'd long heard rumors such a thing might be out there, but she'd never seen the proof.  
  
Until now?  
  
"And you're claiming you've killed one?" She continued, discreetly glancing around, in case he had friends who were late coming to the party. Mutants didn't bother her - they were still Human, she wasn't exactly, so she won every time - but she didn't like surprises. His showing up was bad enough.   
  
"Berserker? Yeah, they're easy to kill 'cause they're cocky. They slice up as easy as anything else."  
  
Definitely a psychopath, but at least he made it work for him. What could he want with the sword? If he could heal from anything … maybe he wanted it for the same reason she did? Wouldn't that be an awful coincidence? "What's say we call a truce and get out of here before reinforcements arrive?"  
  
He eyed her skeptically, obviously thinking the same thing she was: was it worth it to discover what the opposition knows? And when would she try and kill him? But - unless he tried something, and made her kill him - if he was half as good as he seemed to think he was, he'd be useful against Fujimori's group.   
  
He clearly thought it was a trap, but by the same token, he figured he could take her. "Yeah, sure, why the hell not?"  
  
This one was going to be interesting. She only hoped she didn't have to kill him before he could be of some use.  
  
9  
  
The vampire chick seemed to think they'd be better off taking to the roofs, and considering he was soaked in blood, he supposed he could see her point.   
  
But while he had to scale the building with his claws, she just got a running start and did a straight vertical leap up to the roof of one of the lower buildings, maybe forty feet straight up. He forgot vamps could do that; they must have had legs like pistons.   
  
She was a big show off, though, constantly disappearing into shadows, outpacing him across the roofs, leaping impossible gaps with the greatest of ease. But of course she was an exhibitionist: she wore a black leather catsuit that gleamed like obsidian, and wore "bracelets" that were really throwing knives. The belt around her waist carried the more serious knives.  
  
She was a pretty hot babe, though (when not in vamp face). Shame she was dead.  
  
He moved gradually after her, like he didn't care, and really he didn't; he could trace her by scent alone if he had to. But the bottom line of it was his gut was still hurting, so he was not inclined to speedy. The external healing was done, but the internal was still happening - the spear had done quite a bit of damage, hit maybe two or three organs. Now that was a damn good shot, or a damn thick spear, depending on how you looked at it.  
  
When he did catch up with her, she was standing on the precipice of a building overlooking the seedier, darker side of the Ginza, where giant, animate neon ads slowly gave way to smaller, cheaper ones in store windows, advertising beer and cameras. This was closer to the real "soaplands" (brothels), the Yakuza dominated areas where tourists were rarely brave or foolish enough to venture. From here, the people sticking to the coagulating shadows below scurried like rats, afraid to be seen in any blade of light that might stab through from the brighter side of town.   
  
"So who are you anyways?" He asked, wondering who the hell Fujimori was. Obviously the Ressiks worked for him (?), but he wasn't sure (A) what they were if not Yakuza, and (B) if she was really after the sword - she packed a lot of hate in that name; it was possible it was more like a vendetta on her part, not so much a sword hunt.  
  
She stood looking down for a moment, a cold breeze filled with ocean salt ruffling her long black hair like a flimsy veil. He thought she was ignoring him, and he was about to repeat himself more coarsely, when she finally said, "Around here, I'm known as Hime Chishio."  
  
"Lady Blood." An appropriate name for a female vamp. "Cool ass nickname. What's your real name?"  
  
She looked over her shoulder at him, and graced him with a sly smile. Although her face was as pale as the moon, her dark eyes were luminous pools of ink, and her lips were blood red. Two things struck him instantly: she was probably turned by a vampire taken with her beauty, and she wasn't Japanese. Asian, yes, but he guessed from the shape of her face and the tilt of her eyes that she was probably of Chinese extraction. Also, a third thing: she didn't earn her name simply because she was a blood sucker; she took those Ressiks out pretty easily. He could still take her with a single swipe, but if he slipped up, she wouldn't go without a decent fight. It only bothered him a little that he found that another attractive thing about her. "Some call me Yasha."  
  
He knew that was wrong, but it took him a moment to place it. "That's not you're real name either. That's the name of a Japanese mythological demon."  
  
"An angry female demon, yes," she agreed, nodding approvingly. "I thought it was appropriate."  
  
"But you ain't even Japanese."  
  
She laughed, a high, clear sound that almost made her sound Human. "You're something else, mutant. What do they call you?"  
  
"Logan."  
  
She gave him that blade sharp sly smile again, her eyes glittering like stars in the sky above them. "I thought you also had nicknames, related to your powers."  
  
"Not all of us." From the look she gave him, he realized he said it a tad too defensively. "Wolverine," he muttered, trying to hide his embarrassment.  
  
"Really? I was expecting Wolf or something."  
  
He suspected that was a dig at his hair, so he ignored it. "So who is this Fujimori, Lady Blood?"  
  
She grimaced slightly at his use of her name, and turned away; perhaps she thought he was making fun of her. Well, just the name - a bit pretentious for a vamp, wasn't it? "He is the king of Oni-Gaiku."  
  
"Demon Town? Tokyo has one of those?"  
  
"All big cities do; they hide in plain sight, but if you know how to look, you will find them easily enough."  
  
He thought of the Way Station, and how it was one of the boundaries of L.A.'s "demon town" - but then again, some people may have thought all of Hollywood was a demon town, it was just that Humans had co-opted some of it. "I know, I've seen some. So why are you after him?"  
  
She was silent again, looking down at the street below, and he thought she might not answer him. A police car screamed by, its siren lingering long after it was gone, and he wondered if someone else had found Leyoshi's body. Finally, she said, "He wished to acquire my services, thinking my status and reputation would enhance his own. But I work for no one, and told him so. He sent demon hunters after me."  
  
"Should I guess what happened to them?"  
  
"If you wish. I am still here."  
  
Logan easily got the unspoken bit of that: "And they aren't." "So you're out to get him for bein' a supreme asshole?"  
  
She glanced back at him, a cold, brittle smile briefly flashing across her face. "Wouldn't you?"  
  
Okay, she had a point. Fuck, he was tired. He wanted a beer and a nap, in that order; it was probably the blood loss. Sometimes that was really tiring. "What does Fujimori want with the sword?"  
  
"What many others want with it, Human. Whether the legends surrounding it are true or not, many people want it for the sense of power it would convey. To wield Raifu-Kisei is to have the literal power of life and death at your disposal. With it, he could easily expand his boundaries beyond Demon Town."  
  
He sat down on the edge of the roof, too tired to remain standing. Besides, he had a feeling he was in for a long exposition session. "He's gonna try and make a move on the Yakuza? How stupid is he?"  
  
She snorted a laugh, and when she turned around, she crouched, so she would be more or less at his eye level. "He already has moved in on the Yakuza, Logan. Demon Town has swallowed up several of their old soaplands, and territory up to Sakawa Dori."  
  
He tried not to show any surprise on his face, and kept in mind that vamps were hardly arbiters of truth. But what did she have to gain by lying about this? It would be easy enough to verify or disprove. "Fujimori's gang is that tough?"  
  
She studied him for a long moment, her eyes as bright as a bird's, and he knew she was taking his measure. It was impossible to guess what her verdict was. "The Yakuza is made up of humans who fight with money, guns, and blades; they are obsolete. This is a new world, and they have not shifted enough to catch up. They are losing ground here quickly, and they know it. They're getting desperate."  
  
He sighed. "Don't tell me - they're after the sword too."  
  
"I wouldn't be surprised. But Fujimori gang is the one to watch. The Yakuza could hardly hurt you or me, could they?" Her eyes glittered once more, and he wondered if she was implying something. Ultimately he didn't care, but he didn't care for feeling like a butt of a secret joke.   
  
"Why are you after the sword?" He asked, turning it around on her. "It isn't just to piss off Fujimori, is it?"  
  
Her smile deepened, and became distinctively malevolent. "Of course not. I plan to kill him with it."  
  
Man - vampires. Why did they all have more in common with the Weirds than Angel? "Well, at least you have a plan."  
  
"You have no idea what you've just landed in the middle of, Logan. I suggest you give up, and go back to Canada." That sounded like a challenge.  
  
He fixed her with an acrid glare. "Go fuck yourself, Elvira; that sword's mine."  
  
"And why do you want it?" She replied, giving him a grin that was all teeth. She was still enjoying her private joke.  
  
"I'm a collector," he sneered.  
  
She didn't buy it for a single second. She was smarter than she looked. "And I'm a professional volleyball player. Would you like to try again?"  
  
"Personal reasons. Leave it at that."  
  
"Come now, Logan - you'd never let me get away with that."  
  
True enough. It wasn't fair that she knew him that well, especially considering they just met. "I want to raise the dead. Happy now?"  
  
"Have you ever considered zombifying? It's cheaper."  
  
Now he knew she was mocking him. "What the fuck do you want with me, sister? I know you were eyein' me like a t-bone down there. So what's your game? What're you after?" 


	5. Part 5

"I want what you want, Logan. I want the sword."  
  
"To kill Fujimori with."  
  
"To kill Fujimori with," she agreed.  
  
"And what else? Come on - you ain't goin' to all this trouble just to kill a man for the irony. What else is up?"  
  
She studied him again with those starlit eyes of hers, and he wondered how old she was. She looked to be in her twenties, but her eyes were infinitely older. She had seen much in her life, and most of it was ugly. "Who do you wish to resurrect?" She asked, deflecting his question with one of her own.  
  
"That's none of your business."  
  
"So we understand each other," she replied crisply, standing straight and turning back towards the street.  
  
She was going to play it that way, was she? Fine; whatever. She wasn't getting a hold of that sword.   
  
After a moment, she added, "I think it would be beneficial if we worked together, Logan. You don't know what's been happening in this city, and - as much as I hate to admit it - I could use some help against Fujimori. There have been rumors he's brought in a Kalivrana to combat me, and if it's true, I'll need all the help I can get."  
  
"So much for working alone," he sniped. So, she wanted something from him too - lucky him. Why did people always want a piece of him? What was wrong with them? Well, he supposed she had an excuse; she was an evil demon. They did things like that. "So what the hell's a Kalivrana? Some kinda demon?"  
  
"Yes. It's rare on this plane, but they have a very specialized diet. They eat vampires." She glanced at him over her shoulder, gracing him with that razorblade smile again, a single dark brow quirked up questioningly. "So what do you say to deal, Logan? You help me with Fujimori, and as soon as I kill him, the sword is all yours. What do you say?"  
  
He was sure she was planning something else, that she was planning to use him and screw him over, just like everyone else who'd ever offered to make "deals" with him. But he could use a guide through Demon Town, especially if she had the bad rep that she seemed to think she had.  
  
He studied her, and tried to decide if pairing off with a vampire who was so obviously lying to him would pay off in the end.  
  
10  
  
Bob realized he'd been under a bit too long when his lungs started to hurt. That was the problem with having a physical body - so much could go wrong, and it was pretty high maintenance. But what fun you could have with it.  
  
He surfaced for air and let himself float on the surface of his pool, hardly aware that it was perhaps a little too chilly for night swimming, and a touch too damp. But it wasn't raining, like Helga had claimed when she begged out of a dip; it was just misting. It probably wouldn't seriously rain until later.  
  
It was so wonderfully quiet when it rained at night. Save for the distant screech of tires on wet pavement, the only sound was the drops ruffling the leaves of the trees and pattering down on the ground, and the air always smelled so clean it was almost perfume. How could have Hel picked staying inside and watching television over this?  
  
He floated like a dead man on top of the water, his shorts clinging to him like a second skin, and looked up at the pinpricks of white stars that made up the Sydney sky overhead, peering through the gray cloud layer as only he could. Beautiful.  
  
Also, eventually kind of eerie. He decided to sing and fill the void. "With the fire from the fireworks up above, with a gun for a lover and a shot for the pain, you run for cover in the temple of love, shine like thunder, cry like rain - "  
  
A weird feeling overcame him like an Arctic breeze, leaving a wake of goosebumps on his bare skin, and he knew what it was even before he could see the cracks in reality forming right in front of the mimosa tree he had planted near the southwest corner of his privacy wall - tiny filaments of prismatic light that seemed to arc out briefly before curling in on themselves, twining together and joining forces before being swallow by a growing vertical gash of white light.  
  
"And the temple of love is falling down," he muttered to himself, as he swam towards the far end of the pool. As soon as he reached the steps on that side, Osiris had popped out whole in this reality, and made a noise of disgust.  
  
"Oh holy Bitmer," he cursed, ducking his head between his shoulders and holding out his arms like he'd just dipped them in paint. "The sky of this shitty dimension is leaking!"  
  
"It's rain, Sy," he corrected, climbing out of the pool and onto the stone walk surrounding it. "Surely you remember it from your time here."  
  
His hawk eyes flashed with rage. "Here? I was in Egypt. The sky rarely leaked, and when it did, I had mother put a stop to it."  
  
Bob tried to swallow his smile, but couldn't. For all his pseudo-fascist bluster and obsessive love of death, he was such a fucking wimp at heart. Even though he was a complete prick, Bob couldn't help but feel sorry for him. "Got somethin' for me, or did you just cross the dimensional threshold to whinge?"  
  
More death looks from the Death God, but with a flick of one bony, clawed hand, a small scroll appeared, and Sy opened it and looked at it, even though he surely knew what it said. "There was no Jean Grey who died in Canada during the time frame you gave me, giving and taking two months on both sides." The scroll then burst into white light and disappeared, and Sy gave him a look like he smelled bad. "Why are you dripping? Have you sprung a leak as well?"  
  
He gestured back at his pool. "I was swimming, mate."  
  
His jaw went slack, and he seemed perfectly gob smacked. "You went into sky waste? On purpose?"  
  
Bob rubbed his eyes, and briefly thought of clawing them out. Well, it would be better than having this conversation with him. "It's not … look, okay, Jean Grey not dead. So what happened to her?"  
  
"You're asking me? I only know she's not dead."  
  
"Have you checked into Camaxtli?"  
  
"Eris said he's dead."  
  
"I didn't say check with Eris, did I? Of course she's going to insist he's dead, 'cause she's a god and she's supposed to be "infallible"."  
  
Sy's posture stiffened, like someone just jammed a metal pole up his ass. "We are Highers - of course we're infallible."  
  
Bob rolled his eyes. "No we're not. Just 'cause we can kill entire realms by coughing doesn't make us perfect. In fact, it puts our fuck ups on a cosmic scale."  
  
His huge eyes narrowed to the size of tangerines. "We do not, as you say, fuck up. Maybe you do, but we all know what you are."  
  
"Honest," he shot back. "Unlike the entire lot of you."  
  
Sy was unmoved, although still grossed out about the weather. "You're a hypocrite. You accuse us of being snobs, but you think you're better than us."  
  
"I wish I was, Sy, but at the end of the day, I know I'm no different than the rest of you. We're all made of the same coherent energy, and it frustrates the hell out of me."  
  
He snorted disdainfully. "You should be the god of self-loathing. It would fit, would it not?"  
  
Bob was going to tell him something nasty about his son and his sister, but then it suddenly occurred to him, "You continue to insist we're  
  
infallible, Sy? Explain me. You said I was a hideous accident - how do I exist? If we're infallible, then I'm perfect."  
  
Sy opened his mouth to say something, closed it, then tried again, with the same amount of success. After a long moment of fumbling for words, he hissed, "I hate you." He then disappeared in a flare of white light.   
  
Now that was a way to win an argument.  
  
The misty rain had turned into a full on piddling, but unlike Sy, he didn't care if the sky pissed all over him. He let himself fall backwards into the pool, and let the water gently undulate beneath him, carry him farther away from the edge.  
  
So Jean didn't die. She was transmogrified/transformed, or possibly even ripped out of this reality. That did sound like someone protecting their avatar in an extreme manner. Could she even exist in this dimension anymore? Eventually she could adapt, but maybe not right away; maybe that's why she hadn't reappeared yet, and seemed to be content with communicating with Logan in such a cryptic, painful manner. Or there was more going on, just as he feared. Why couldn't anything be simple?  
  
He wondered if he should tell Logan or not. No - he needed to find something a bit more than "She didn't officially die," and he needed Logan to come back to him first; there was no point in accidentally pushing him away even further.  
  
Jean wasn't dead. That should have been a good thing. So why didn't it feel that way?  
  
11  
  
It was only when Yasha suggested he go back to his hotel and change into some less bloody clothes that Logan realized he'd never registered at a hotel. He'd gone straight to Leyoshi's after the jet landed, and it turned out it didn't matter anyways. He could go check in now … drenched torso to ankles in blood? No, he couldn't see how that was going to work. He hadn't brought a change of clothes either.  
  
Yasha rolled her eyes at him, like he was the stupidest thing ever, and took him to a "friend of hers" in Demon Town. They stuck to the roofs until they absolutely had to get down, because she was afraid the scent of his Human blood would bring everyone out of the woodwork.   
  
Demon Town looked like an American tenement slammed smack dab in the middle of Tokyo. All the buildings were drab little cracker boxes, the paint peeling like sunburned skin, rotting on their bases like neglected teeth, the pavement fissured as if it had been broken by an earthquake and never fixed. A feeling of doom overcame him like a shroud as soon as he set foot within its boundaries. Maybe it was a Human repelling spell, or just the depression that seemed to clog the air of this particular neighborhood. He could see, between the corroded walls of two slowly crumbling apartments, a dark ribbon of water that was probably the Sumida gawa (river), but he could never remember seeing it look so black before. Maybe the atmosphere of this place eventually sunk into the pores of everything.  
  
He let Yasha lead him into a squat building that looked like a brownstone put through a trash compactor,and inside he groaned at the strong reek of urine and demon sweat. The elevator had two signs posted on it (in Japanese): "Lift Out Of Order" and "This Is Not A Toilet" (that explained the urine smell). Meaning they had to go up the rickety staircase to the fifth floor.  
  
On their way up, Yasha asked, "So how do you know so much about demons - and killing them - if you are not a hunter? I know you're not a Watcher."  
  
"I just have experience, all right? My life is full of demons."  
  
She glanced back at him, one eyebrow raised skeptically. "You really think I'm going to be happy with that?"  
  
"I'm not here to make you happy," he snapped, as a board on the second floor landing groaned in protest of his weight. Even the building was a critic. After a moment, he just decided to tell her, and hope that made her back off. "Look, I'm - I was - the avatar for the Drai'shajan, all right? That's how I know a lot of this shit."  
  
She paused several stairs above him, and gave him a somewhat blank look. "The Drai'shajan is a myth."  
  
"No he's not. He's just Australian."  
  
"You're having me on."  
  
"No, I'm not. I wish he didn't exist, but he does. He's this Aussie who owns a bar in Los Angeles, and he's annoying as all fuck."  
  
She continued to study him skeptically. "A fallen Power is an Australian who runs a bar in L.A.?"  
  
"Yeah, I know it sounds bad. But who the fuck would make up something that lame?"  
  
She tilted her head slightly, acknowledging the point. "So what body is he trapped in?"  
  
He had a feeling that was a test, to further judge his veracity. "A Belial demon's body. But he must have gotten his powers back, 'cause he doesn't seem to need it; it's just a convenience."  
  
"Belial demons are liars."  
  
"No shit, darlin'. Apparently they're also fuck demons as well. But has any Belial ever been able to make everyone forget they were talking to him? Or put the smack down on a god?"  
  
That made her eyebrows raise. "A god? Which one?"  
  
"Actually, more than one. Fenrir, Loki, Ares, and Kumiho are the ones I know about."  
  
She leaned against the water stained wall, and said, "I know you're making this up." Then she paused briefly, and added, "But you aren't, are you? That's just too wild a story for any human to make up."  
  
"Gee, thanks."  
  
"Still, Humans don't make avatars. They're too weak."  
  
He glared at her. "Do I look weak, sister?" He plucked up his shirt by the hole the spear gun made, just for emphasis.  
  
She glanced away and stood up straight, seemingly chagrined. "Fair enough. Did the Power give you that power?"  
  
It took him a moment to decipher that question. "My healin' factor? No, that's my mutation."  
  
"Oh. I thought it was your claws and your nose."  
  
"Those too."  
  
Her slender brows formed a savage v over her eyes as she glared at him dubiously. "I thought you guys only got one thing."  
  
He glared right back at her, resenting her "you guys", and the implication that he was a liar. "It depends. There's no rules for mutants."  
  
"Or avatars?"  
  
He shouldn't have said anything. It should have impressed her, or at least made her back off, but no, of course not. The cache of Bob's name had finally failed him. "You wanted to know how I knew all this demon shit; I told you. Now let's get a move on."  
  
She stood staring down at him for a very long moment, then shook her head and turned around, heading back up the rickety stairs. "I swear, the weirdest people come to Tokyo."  
  
"This from a vampire," he carped, following her to the protesting groans of the aging stairs.  
  
Floor number five was, in reality, floor number four - except you rarely found floor number fours in Japanese buildings, just like you rarely found a thirteenth floor in the hotels of the States: the number four closely resembled the kanji meaning death, so four was considered an unlucky and inauspicious number in most Asian countries where Chinese or Japanese style ideograms were used (the Japanese kanji was highly influenced by the Chinese, whether they admitted it or not).  
  
The halls was narrow and dingy, but at least it didn't smell like pee. It smelled more like demon sweat and - inexplicably - rice pudding, but Logan had learned by now that if he really didn't want to know, he shouldn't ask.  
  
She approached a door at the end of the corridor, and as she knocked on it and said, "Cujo, it's me," Logan was taken with a distinct smell of celery.  
  
Oh no - it couldn't be.  
  
There was the sound of locks being thrown, and a muffled voice said through the door, "Are you in trouble again?"  
  
No Cockney accent; what a relief.   
  
"Not as such. Come on, hurry up - the sun's up in five hours."  
  
"Moan moan moan. All you vampires are so impatient," the crystal eyed demon said, finally opening the door. While it wasn't Rags (what had Lia called this breed? Persaid demons?), it was a guy who looked a lot like Rags. Tall and slender, Human looking save for having yellow crystals in place of eyes, his hair was black as opposed to Rags's straw blond, and long enough that he wore it in a small ponytail pulled tightly back at the nape of his neck. And those glassy eyes widened upon (somehow) seeing him. "What the fuck is this? Chi, I've asked you not to bring kills here - "  
  
"He's not a kill," she said, pushing past him into his apartment. As Logan approached, "Cujo" backed up, seemingly freaked out by all the blood he was currently wearing. Which was fine with Logan. "He needs some clothes. You're almost his size, aren't you?"  
  
Logan shut the door as soon as he was inside, and Cujo had rounded on Yasha, staring at her in slack jawed surprise. "What? Loan a Human my clothes?! Are you nuts? I'll never get the stink out!"  
  
"You should talk, Celery Boy," he snapped, glancing around Cujo's flat. It was small and efficient, pretty much what you'd expect from a Japanese apartment, but what you wouldn't expect was the shagadelic bachelor pad Cujo had turned it into. Black light posters lined the walls, while lava lamps of various colors and shapes sat on low tables around the room, giving questionably dim illumination to the scene, and yet it was still unable to suppress the glow coming off the Kool-Aid orange colored shag carpet. A t.v. with its sound muted was currently showing one of those famously brutal and humiliating Japanese game shows, and a hand rolled cigarette smoldered in an ashtray on a low table in from the screen, where a can of Coke and a bowl of steaming udon noodles also sat, waiting for Cujo to return. The odd thing was, the cigarette was neither a cancer stick or pot; it smelled like he was actually smoking dried green tea. Well hell, he was a demon - it was possible that was his version of pot.  
  
"His bedroom's back there," Yasha said, waving her hand towards a blue beaded curtain that hung in the doorway beyond the television. "Go get whatever, but nothing expensive."  
  
"Hey," Cujo protested, but he made no move to stop Logan as he went towards the curtain. Instead, he decided to argue with Yasha. Logan had only known her for maybe twenty minutes, and already he knew that was a pointless exercise. "What the hell is this about, Yash? Don't tell me you're fucking Humans now."  
  
"Don't even joke," she snarled. "He's helping me with Fujimori, that's all. Got it?"  
  
As the curtain clacked behind him, he suddenly wondered if Cujo was an ex-boyfriend of hers. Weird. He couldn't see that match happening at all. Then again, did vampires have social lives? Did they date? What the hell was a date with a vampire like? A light lunch at a blood bank, followed by cemetery prowling?  
  
"Yash, if you know what's good for you, let this thing with Fujimori go. You know how fucking dangerous that maniac is. Maybe you should go to Hong Kong, lay low until he forgets about you. And how's a goddamn Human gonna help you with him, anyways?"  
  
Cujo's bedroom was more tasteful than his living room, but then again, it would have to be. He had a futon with a questionable black and white zebra style cover, a free standing closet on one end of the room, a bamboo blind covered window about the size of a book on the other side, and a small chest of drawers, where a blue lava lamp reflected its weak glow in a mirror. It was enough light for him to see by at least.  
  
"He's more than Human."  
  
"Meaning?"  
  
"Meaning? Don't you watch the fucking news? He's a mutant, that's what."  
  
It took a little searching, but he found a plain t-shirt (he owned a lot with lots of kitschy, nonsensical English words slapped together, like Homey Pancake Coupe) and a pair of jeans that might fit him, if he was lucky. He didn't know what to do with his bloody clothes, so after stripping them off, he tossed them in the far corner, hoping they left stains on his hideous carpet.  
  
"Fine, so he can communicate with the dead - how the fuck is that gonna help you with Fujimori? He has Berserkers on his payroll!"  
  
There was something about the feeling of their argument that told Logan they were indeed exes of some sort, and he couldn't quite wrap his head around it. Her sleeping with him? (Actually, her sleeping with anyone - the phrase "ball busting bitch" had occurred to him.) It must have been difficult being a demon and trying to have a sex life.  
  
He sat down on Cujo's futon to put his boots back on, tuning out their continuing banter, and wondered how he got such a stupid nickname - if it was indeed a nickname. Had he ever found out why they called Rags "Rags"? Maybe Persaid demons were only notable for their silly, inappropriate names.  
  
Fuck, he was tired. He felt dizzy just leaning over to lace up his boots, but that was probably the blood loss. He had yet to get a drink, to aid the restoration of his fluid level, and he could feel the metal weighing down his bones - always a bad sign. He sat back against the somewhat uncomfortable futon and let his head fall back against the frame, as cowardly Cujo continued to try and fruitlessly talk Yasha out of revenge.  
  
He decided to rest his eyes, just for a minute. Just until the lover's spat was over.  
  
He didn't remember falling asleep until he woke up someplace else.  
  
12  
  
Scott told himself, for the seventh or eighth time, that Ororo couldn't be more wrong. He was not "hiding himself away"; he had things to do. Important things, and there was never enough time in the day to do them all. And that's why he was spending a rare "free" afternoon in the garage, cleaning spark plugs.  
  
Oh god, he was pathetic.  
  
He tried not to think about it, as he started working on the motorcycle that he'd gotten to replace the one Logan had taken from him. It was used, but in very good shape for it. A few modifications, and it would be -   
  
- (pathetic, pathetic, pathetic) -  
  
- even better than the last one. But there was carbon in the exhaust, and he didn't like that -   
  
- (you are so fucking sad, Summers) -  
  
- so he really should take a look at the entire engine, break it down. Maybe the fuel was low grade.  
  
Just as he was considering sealing the garage door and starting one of the cars, the inner door burst open, and a slightly breathless Bobby was standing there, staring at him with his wide, ice blue eyes. "Mister Summers," he said, unfailingly polite, even in his obvious agitation. "You have to see this."  
  
Bobby hung around just long enough to make sure he was coming, then took off again. "What is it?" He called after him, suddenly very concerned. Ororo had taken some of the younger kids out to the mall, and many of the other kids who were still on speaking terms with their parents were off visiting them. The school was probably at one-sixth of its normal capacity, and that probably accounted for the eerie silence in the hallways. If someone wanted to attack now - in spite of it being broad daylight - they probably wouldn't meet much resistance.  
  
The pursuit ended in the front room, where Rogue and Brendan loitered on the furniture, and the television blared loudly, filling the mostly empty space with noise. Scott knew instantly, from the way that both Bobby and Rogue were staring at the screen, that that's what they wanted him to see.  
  
For a moment, Scott thought it was some kind of joke. On the t.v. was a man in what appeared to be a FedEx uniform, talking to an unseen reporter as a slightly unsteady cameraman filmed the hastily cobbled together interview. " - at the Wessex, and it was the damnedest thing I ever saw. The flames just jumped from one building to another. It was like it was targeting people."  
  
The screen cut to the reporter, a tall Hispanic woman with one of those frighteningly plastic local news reporter faces, and a hair helmet an anchorman would have been proud of. A chyron flashed on the left side of the screen, identifying the woman as Marcy Toklas, reporting for a station he'd never heard of. "It has taken firefighters six hours to get the majority of the flames under control. There are no casualty figures as of yet, although St. Vincent's is reporting that its emergency room is being swamped by people suffering from burns and smoke inhalation. There has been no official response to multiple witness accounts that the flames seemed to former tunnels, and "jump" between the six buildings that were engulfed in the conflagration - "  
  
Now he knew why Bobby wanted him to see this. "Pyro." The Professor had been unable to find him or Mystique, leading him to assume that Magneto had figured out a way to shield them from his telepathy as well. Scott had assumed that there would be something that would give them away eventually, but he hadn't thought that it would be Pyro. But then again, why not? He was just a kid, and not a very disciplined one, either.  
  
The t.v. was now showing live pictures of charred buildings fuming like smokestacks. "Where is this?" He asked, just throwing it out for either one of them. Sadly, a lot of America looked like other parts of America; distinctions were being lost.  
  
"Chicago," Rogue said. She was sitting on the couch, legs folded up beneath her, ineptly trying to hide a Game Boy by tucking it under a cushion.   
  
It didn't look like a good part of Chicago either. What the hell were they doing there? And why the hell had Pyro decided to light up half a block? "I'm going to talk to the Professor," he said, turning away.  
  
"If you go, I have to go with you," Bobby said quickly. "I cancel him out."  
  
That was true. Whatever John could light up, Bobby could freeze.  
  
"And I can take his powers away," Rogue said, standing up. Their eyes were bright with eagerness, either just longing to get out of here and do something, or dying to go after Pyro.   
  
He sighed, and said, "Look, if I go, it's only for reconnaissance. Surely they're long gone - Magneto isn't going to stick around when Pyro makes a big scene - but I want to know why they were there. That's all. There's not going to be a fight, and we are not suiting up. Is that clear?"  
  
They nodded, and Rogue looked vaguely disappointed. Maybe she had a grudge against John now, but he had no idea - none of the kids talked about him (that he knew of), and he'd become something like the elephant in the living room: no one mentioned it, but it was impossible to ignore.  
  
Brendan was sitting in an arm chair, pretty much ignoring everything. He was pretending to read the New Yorker, but he actually had a comic called Transmetropolitan hidden in there. "Brendan," Scott said, gaining his startled attention. "You want to prep the jet?"  
  
His draw dropped slightly. "Me?"  
  
Brendan still had questionable taste in boyfriends, but he had lots of promise. His mutant eidetic memory allowed him to repeat things to perfection after only seeing them once, hence his being rated to fly the jet after only two weeks; in fact, he could have been rated to fly it after one lesson. But Scott had drilled him first, and run him through more simulations than most of the advanced students. Watching him, he had become duly impressed by how he handled emergency situations; yes, he was scared, but he never panicked. He just ran through all of his voluminous memories, and pulled out what he needed to solve the problem. He'd actually done better in one crisis sim than Scott, but he hadn't mentioned that.  
  
And if he was just able to do things by rote, he wouldn't have been very good. But Bren was better than that; he was a street kid (sadly), and he had learned a lot that you simply couldn't teach, for good and for ill. His survival instincts were honed to a degree that most teenagers couldn't claim; most people in their teens felt invincible. Brendan knew he was not, and that no one was.  
  
He was a natural leader. He didn't want to lead anyone, but that's what made him perfect for the role. The best leaders were often the ones that didn't want it.   
  
It was then that Scott heard a squelching noise in the hall, and cringed. Oh god no.  
  
"So where are we goin'?" Chameleon asked, looking in on them from the corridor. 


	6. Part 6

"No," Scott insisted, not even bothering to turn around. "You're not coming with us."  
  
"Well I ain't staying here," she shot back. Either she didn't get that she wasn't welcome, or - most likely scenario - didn't care.   
  
"Why can't she come along?" Brendan wondered, putting his magazine down and getting up. "Logan ain't here, and we could use a bad ass with us in case, ya know, something goes wrong."  
  
"Aren't you the bad ass around here?" Bobby replied.  
  
Brendan flashed him a middle finger, but it was all teasing. Although it was now all just water under the bridge, no one had forgotten that Brendan had single handedly (well, with one bit of help from Matt) beaten back an attack by a mutant hit squad. Scott wondered if things wouldn't have gone worse for them if Chameleon was on the team at the time.   
  
Scott was briefly disappointed that he wasn't considered a "bad ass", but he quickly got over it - after all, wasn't that just another way of saying thick headed bully? He'd rather take a pass on that. "You're not even a peripheral member of the team, Cressida," he pointed out. "You don't even want to be here. Why would you come along?"  
  
She shrugged. "Something to do."  
  
Oh yeah, that was a good reason.  
  
"C'mon, Chico, let's go prep us a jet," Chameleon said, her voice becoming strangely deep. When he looked at her, he saw she had morphed form into Logan.  
  
Brendan joined her, looking slightly goggle eyed at her instantaneous transformation, and asked, as he followed her down the hall, "So, can you mimic him wearing a sleeveless shirt?"  
  
Scott sighed heavily and shook his head, aware he'd probably never get rid of her. He could tell her she wasn't rated to fly the jet, but she would insist she could fly anything, and he was not going to argue with her in front of the kids, especially since he knew they'd probably be on her side. Had they no idea what a dangerous person she was? She wasn't "an old friend of Logan's" - she was an assassin, plain and simple. (And how did he tell them that without freaking them out, or inadvertently glamorizing such a thing?)  
  
Well, maybe he should look at it this way: if Magneto was still around, he'd assume he'd be only confronting X-Men. He'd never be prepared for another rogue Organization agent, who didn't have a single ounce of metal to her name.  
  
Come to think of it, he sort of did want to see the look on Magneto's face when he was confronted with something he hadn't prepared for, and Mystique with a shapeshifter who was even better at it than she was. That might make putting up with Cressida worth it.  
  
13  
  
Logan found himself staring up at a bright blue sky, dotted with fluffy clouds like wisps of cotton, while the air was redolent of water and greenery, and birds sang happily in the trees.  
  
Okay, this was wrong on several different levels. Wasn't he in the apartment of a Persaid demon named Cujo just a second ago?  
  
He sat up, and figured he was somewhere in Central Park, but a slightly idealized - or at least cleaner - version. He could feel fabric beneath him, and found he was laying on a blanket, probably spread out for a picnic. What the fuck? This wasn't his memory. So whose memory was it?  
  
He felt a sharp burst of fear induced adrenaline as he quickly looked behind him, and found Jean sitting several feet away, eating an apple.  
  
He stared at her in surprise, wondering if interaction was at all possible, when she suddenly said, "I prevented a mugging here once, you know." She paused to chew a bite of her apple, then went on. "I didn't mean to catch the thought, you understand, but I did. I made them change their mind and go home."  
  
He looked down the slightly sloped hill (were there hills in Central Park? She had definitely elaborated this scenario a great deal), trying to find what she seemed to be staring at, but he saw nothing beyond a very run of the mill duck pond and a bike path. He saw no one familiar looking down there either. "Jeannie?" He asked, still a little startled. Was it her? Was this completely psychic, or had he actually been removed from where he was? It all seemed so damn real it was truly disorienting.  
  
She just chewed on her apple, not looking at him, and he started to wonder if this dreamscape was interactive in the least. Perhaps not.   
  
There was a wicker basket off to his right, anchoring down the corner of the blue plaid blanket, and a familiar smell made him look inside. Beer. "You don't drink beer," he said.  
  
"I know, neither does Scott," she replied, finally speaking directly to him. "But I didn't think he'd like you being here, so I removed him."  
  
That sounded far more sinister than she probably intended. He took a beer, felt the cold and slippery surface of the aluminum can in his palm, and wondered again if this was somehow real. But what she said proved it wasn't. "This is a memory, huh? You and Scott came here once?"  
  
She nodded, and finally looked at him. Something swirled in her irises, red and hot, like living fire. "He took me out here for our first anniversary. It was charming."  
  
Charming? Something about he way she said it indicated she really wasn't that crazy about it. "You liked the thought more than the gesture?"  
  
"Picnics usually sound better than they actually are."  
  
"Don't most things?"  
  
She gave him a small, tight smile. "I know you better than you think, Logan. You don't have to keep the armor up here."  
  
He frowned, not liking the sound of that. But if this was a mindscape, yeah, she had him. She was the telepath; he wasn't. All he could do was concentrate on being vivisected, and hope the experience was horrific enough to drive her out. Still, if this was her, he didn't want to hurt her like that; she was always afraid of his mind.  
  
"But not of you - don't confuse the two," she said, surprising him once more. He hated it when mind readers did that; it was like skipping a page ahead. "It was just I couldn't handle all the fragments of your thoughts and the pain then."  
  
"Then?"  
  
"I've … this has been a learning experience."  
  
He closed his eyes, and put the cold can to his forehead, trying to keep his temper in check. It would do no good to go into a rage here anyways; it was done, and he couldn't change it. Yet. "I'm sorry."  
  
"For what?"  
  
"For … what happened. Camaxtli."  
  
"It's not your fault."  
  
"No, it's Bob's. And if I could figure out some way to kill the bastard - "  
  
"It's not his fault either," she said, surprising him. He glanced back at her, and found reality had shifted slightly - she was now sitting right behind him, the apple gone. But he had not felt her, he had not smelled her, and he wondered how much she was manipulating all of this. Maybe it was Jean, but he didn't like anyone playing with his senses; sometimes they were all he had. "Sometimes things happen for a reason that's beyond us, Logan."  
  
"I don't believe that," he shot back, with more heat than he intended. "You know what hanging with Bob has taught me? I was right to be an atheist. There is no benevolent, all powerful God; there's just a bunch of over-powered, spoiled little brats who live in another dimension and think of us - if they think of us at all - as pests, little ants in a farm. We're nothing to them but food at best, and maybe a low grade kind of entertainment. They're no better than people, and possibly worse. Somebody oughta break that to Nightcrawler, but it'd probably crush him."  
  
She just smiled at him patiently, and he wondered if he had missed exactly what she meant. "You're exhausted, Logan. I can feel it coming off of you in waves - are you all right?"  
  
Changing the subject? Yeah, why not? "Haven't been sleeping well. So what else is new?"  
  
"What's wrong?" She then looked haunted, her fiery eyes wide and stricken. "Is it my fault?"  
  
He shrugged, and to avoid having to look at her (her eye thing was really eerie-and just slightly reminiscent of Kumiho, although her flames were green), he laid back on the blanket, folding his arms beneath his head and closing his eyes. "You tell me. What did you try and do to me?"  
  
"Nothing. I thought it would be an easier way to communicate a large amount of information."  
  
"And I still haven't made heads or tails of it, 'cept the whole Cammy thing. But I'm not sure I completely get that either."  
  
"I just assumed, since you could channel Bob, you could handle this."  
  
"I can handle it. Interpret it all is another story."  
  
He felt the air change from cool to warm, a breeze as warm as blood, and he opened his eyes to see a blanket of flames spreading across the sky, the blue bleeding away in the onslaught of crimson light. "Why are you doing that?" He wondered.  
  
"I can't always control it," she said, almost sheepishly. "I'm still getting the hang of it, as you said." She said that last part so stiffly, he felt a chill down his spine. Was it Jean? That didn't sound like Jean; that sounded like something trying very hard to seem Human, even though they weren't.  
  
But then he felt her hand smoothing through his hair, stroking it idly, and it felt so good he almost didn't notice the slightly creepy feeling that came with it. "Why?" She asked, so softly he nearly missed it.  
  
"Why what?"  
  
"Why are you after that sword?"  
  
Why did telepaths ever shock him? There was no having a surprise party for them, was there? "You don't know? You aren't looking hard enough."  
  
There was a long moment of silence, and he realized the birds were no longer singing, nor were their any Human type noises coming from below. He glanced up only to confirm they were gone, and he and Jean (or whatever she was) were now alone. Maybe nothing could survive in this fiery landscape, or nothing wanted to.   
  
Suddenly, she gasped, and exclaimed, "You were married?"  
  
Even though it was far too late and probably pointless, he shoved away all thoughts of Mariko and attempted to hide them deep inside his mind. "It was a long time ago."  
  
"I feel like such an ass."  
  
"Why? 'Cause of that "women only marry the good guys" comment?" Although it was a nice moment of vindication, he was still not ready to discuss Mariko with her or anyone. "Forget it, okay? Just drop it."  
  
"Why didn't you ever mention it?" She then paused, and seemingly answered her own question. "You love her."  
  
He sat up, drawing his knees to his chest. He didn't want to talk about this. "Don't do this to me, Jean."  
  
"You still love her," she repeated, clarifying what she found so shocking.  
  
Logan felt a pointless surge of rage he couldn't completely explain. He wrapped his arms tightly around his legs, making himself as small as possible, refusing to look back at her. "I said drop it. I mean it."  
  
She put her hand on his back, between his shoulder blades, and he wanted to shrug her off, but he found himself unable to do so. Her skin was hot, like she had lava in her veins, and he could feel the heat starting to spread through his own body. "I had no idea … you don't do things half way, do you? After all this time, you still wish you could have died in her place - "  
  
"Shut up!" He roared, breaking free of her strangely consumptive touch -   
  
- and jolting awake on the futon in Cujo's bedroom, with Yasha watching him curiously from the curtained entryway. "You're not one of those people with narcolepsy, are you?" She asked.  
  
He scowled at her as his bearings came back. What the fuck had that been about with Jean? If it was Jean; he really couldn't say. "No, I was just tired of hearin' you and your boyfriend fight. Are you through yet?"  
  
It was her turn to scowl. "He is not my boyfriend. And I was waiting for you to get done, you lazy asshole."  
  
He levered himself up from the futon, still feeling enervated but not quite as much as before, and said, "Fine. If we're both done lyin', can we get going now?"  
  
She continued to give him a death glare that would have been much more effective if she was in vamp face. "You think you're so clever, don't you?"  
  
"No, I'm a dumb ass, but I know when people are lyin' to me." He ran a hand through his hair, and asked, "Where are we goin' from here, anyways?"  
  
"Further downtown. I have a contact who's been trying to locate the sword for me, and I hope she has by now. I paid her enough."  
  
He shrugged, not really carrying one way or another. The contact with the Jean thing had left him emotionally reeling, and he felt slightly lost. He wasn't even completely sure he was here. "Some kinda demon?"  
  
"Sorceress."  
  
"Of course, how could I miss that?"  
  
She glowered at him, and said, "If you embarrass me in front of Reiko, I'll rip your dick off and feed it to a werewolf."  
  
He raised an eyebrow at her, doing his best not to laugh (because if anyone would try, she would). "You just wanna grab my dick, don't you?"  
  
She rolled her eyes and turned away, storming off. "You wish, Human," she muttered in disgust.  
  
Oh yeah, this was gonna be fun.  
  
14  
  
Yasha led him into the heart of Demon Town, which ironically looked like just another sub-section of the Shinjuku district. They passed seedy bars and not so subtle soaplands, all catering to demon clientele. Karaoke music blared from run down bars on one side of the street, while Western rap music thudded from even seedier, neon gilded bars on the other side of the street; an urban cacophony that could have made this any part of downtown Tokyo … save for the Slime demons with some kind of moisture dripping from their wide rack of horns (they looked like deer antlers more than traditional "devil" horns) walking boldly down the unkempt sidewalks. Okay, more like reeling - most appeared tanked to the (figurative) gills. Yasha said, with obvious disgust, that the entire breed was "nothing but drunks". Having never met any before, he couldn't say.  
  
He seemed to be the only Human around, earning a lot of stares. Sometimes when they saw who he was with, they quickly looked away, and he guessed that Yasha did indeed have an impressive reputation around here. But when a demon that looked like a big pile of warts with eyeballs growled at him, he popped his claws, and that seemed to shut it up. He kept the claws on his left hand out, just to cut down on the number of eyes glued to him. It seemed to work.  
  
She led him to a small shop by the name of Youjutsu - literally, Black Magic. Its dusty front window was full of the usual "magic shop" tchotchkes: crystals, geodes, animal skulls polished to a high gloss, clutches of skeletal tree branches in a vase that looked like a brass recreation of those giant heads on Easter Island, all lit by candle lamps that couldn't hope to compete with the neon beer signs across the way. But the red candle burning in the snow monkey skull (the wax dripping down looked like fresh blood) was a nice touch.  
  
She told him to retract the blades, so he did (reluctantly), and they went inside, their entrance announced by gentle silver wind chimes. "Reiko, it's me," she called, as the thick scent of rare herbs made him sneeze.  
  
There was an audible "poof", and a woman suddenly appeared in front of them. Small but sturdily built, she had painted her eyes with purple glitter eye shadow, in such a way that they looked both larger and somehow Egyptian, while her thin lips were a mere smear of violet that matched her Mandarin style silk dress. Her hair was swept up inside a fold of matching silk, held together by black lacquered chopsticks. She looked awful; like a disco Asian Barbie doll. "You never said anything about a friend, Yasha," the woman said. She looked Japanese, but spoke it with a Brazilian accent.  
  
"He's not a friend," she snarled defensively. "He's a mutant merc looking for the sword as well."  
  
"Hey," Logan snapped. "I never said I was a merc."  
  
Yasha ignored him, but Reiko - who looked all of thirty (trying hard to pass for twenty), looked him up and down carefully, as if sizing him up for fighting capability. Or fucking capability; on a woman, the look was sometimes the same. "What's your name, Wolfman?"  
  
Okay, that was it - the next person who made a "wolfman" joke got decked. "Logan. You're the witch?"  
  
She looked slightly taken aback, like he thought she might. He had a feeling the terms "witch" and "sorceress" really weren't interchangeable. "I am no goody two shoes witch, mutant - get it right."  
  
"And don't call me mutant," he spat, not caring for her disdainful tone.  
  
"Hey," Yasha interjected. "Fight later. I need to know what you got for me."  
  
But Reiko was still studying him like a fascinating bug she found in her soup. "Logan? How old are you?"  
  
He wasn't expecting that. "How old do you think I am?"  
  
"What's this about?" Yasha asked impatiently.  
  
"A long time ago, there was a hunt for a samurai that wouldn't die, a Westerner who went by the name of Logan. Some yakuza suspected him of being demon, but he was just a mutant. Was that you, Mister Logan?"  
  
"I didn't know there were Western samurai," Yasha said. She honestly didn't care, and Logan was relieved.  
  
"Apparently. Well, Logan?"  
  
He scoffed, trying to shake it off, but damn it, why did he keep running into people who vaguely knew of him? It may have been better if they knew him, but no, they only knew rumors and second hand stories. Bloody Friday must have had more of a lasting impact than he realized. "Do I look like a samurai to you, Morgan le Fey?"  
  
Judging from the way her painted on brows dropped sharply, she didn't like that name. "What a stereotype, you - "  
  
"Hey!" Yasha shouted, almost vamping out. "Info, Reiko - I ain't here for my health, and I'm down to time. Where's the fucking sword?"  
  
Reiko turned her disapproving gaze on Yasha, but it was more haughty than annoyed. "I can't find it. I found every sword in Japan but that one."  
  
Yasha was so shocked, Logan was relatively sure she was going to kill her. "After what I paid you - "  
  
"It is being shielded by a powerful enchantment," Reiko quickly interrupted. "Someone went to great lengths to ensure the sword is never found. So far I have been unable to break the spell, but given enough time - "  
  
"Enough time?" Yasha interrupted. "You mean more money, you charlatan."  
  
Reiko took a step back, as if Yasha had actually hit her, and her spine stiffened as she flushed with equal parts embarrassment and rage. "How dare you, you undead parasite! I am not a - "  
  
They never did find out what she wasn't, because in that instant she disappeared - and he and Yasha found themselves surrounded.  
  
It was a tiny shop, so that wasn't difficult. There were eight very large Ressiks and demons that looked like they were made from tightly packed stones, all carrying guns and very sharp wooden stakes, and one very Human looking Japanese guy leaning against the front counter. But when he turned an oily smile on the both of them, Logan saw his eyes were bright Belial blue. "Thank you for that, Lady Blood," he said, as unctuous as a lawyer. "Mister Fujimori wanted to make sure his spellcasters weren't just a bunch of incompetent boobs. Certainly I'm not - " he snapped his fingers, and a blue spark fell to the floor. " - but the rest of them couldn't find their own assholes with a flashlight and a map."  
  
The ground trembled ever so slightly, and a shadow fell over the front of the store. Logan could only see an extremely large body and huge hands - no face - but it was obviously a Berserker, and one of the larger ones. He smelled burning tires, and heard a noise like gravel down a metal drainpipe. Berserker growling?  
  
"What did you do with Reiko?" Yasha demanded. Logan bet she didn't care and was simply stalling for time.  
  
The Belial gave her a patently false smile. "Oh, she's just cooling her heels in the harbor. I'm sure she'll be fine, if she can get to shore. Don't let it be said that Mr. Fujimori isn't generous. If you agree to cease your pursuit of the artifact, we have been instructed to let you walk away."  
  
"Bullshit," Logan snarled, instantly hating the smarmy little man. "You'd never trust a vampire, and you're a Belial: all you can do is lie."  
  
The Belial only quirked an eyebrow at him. "Ooh, what have we here? An uppity Human? Do you need protection from meat bags now, milady?"  
  
There was snickering among the Ressik and rock crew, and Yasha frowned darkly. "You're a dead man, Riley."  
  
"No, you're the dead woman, if I'm not mistaken," he replied crisply, relishing his control of this scene.  
  
He and Yasha stood back to back in the middle of the store, and she muttered, "You're gonna have to prove you're a Berserker killer now, you know."  
  
"Yeah, I got that idea," he admitted. After a brief pause, he said, "I get stakes, you get guns, and we'll arm wrestle for Belial boy."  
  
"Agreed," she said, just as the swarm of demons closed in for the kill. 


	7. Part 7

15  
  
Scott thought Cressida pretending to be Logan (and indulging Brendan's bare arm fetish) the entire flight was bad enough, but he should have known better.  
  
The scene was utter chaos. They landed a couple blocks away in what appeared to be an abandoned gravel pit, and walked in, navigating a crowd of rubberneckers, frustrated commuters blocked from their usual route, and emergency personnel and press, still swarming past the ad hoc barricades placed at either end of the street.  
  
Brendan was sure he could find a way to "sneak access" to the scene - "Come on, I used to sleep in movie theaters - you don't think I actually paid to get in, do you?" - and while it was probably bad precedent, Scott had Bobby and Rogue go with Brendan, to see if they could indeed get on the scene in a sneaky way. Well, he and Cressida could make up some bullshit story, but he couldn't see getting kids to pass.  
  
But he had no idea what bullshit story they were going to use until Cressida suddenly changed her appearance to a short, stocky middle aged man they had seen earlier: the fire chief. He seemed to have been giving a statement beyond the barricade, possibly to distract the reporters, or they simply had him cornered on his way to the site.  
  
"C'mon, let's go," Cressida barked sharply, in a distinct Chicagoan nasal accent.   
  
One of the cops manning the barricade moved back the wooden sawhorse acting as part of the physical cordon, and said, "Got away, huh?"  
  
"By the hair on your wife's chin," she replied breezily.   
  
The cop chuckled weakly, then gave him a suspicious look as he followed Cressida (what the hell was the chief's name? Did she see his patch?) past the barricade. "This is Buck Summers, he's an arson investigator for the Feds, sent in from Madison."  
  
Buck? Scott just flashed the man what he hoped was a professional, perfunctory smile, and the cop just gave him a terse nod, although he seemed to stare pretty hard at his glasses. "Wooten's waiting at Base Camp two for you," he said to Cressida, apparently buying her story.  
  
"Wooten can wait - I gotta give Buck here the grand tour. Tell him to grab a cuppa coffee, or he gets to talk to the vultures."  
  
And that was it. They were through the crime scene unchallenged, and as soon as he was sure no one would hear, he muttered, "Buck?"  
  
"They all have stupid nicknames," she said dismissively. "Buck, Red, Tex, Lefty, Slim, Butch, Noodle, Frenchy, the Weasel, shit like that."  
  
Noodle? She was making that up. Actually, she was probably making this whole thing up, but he had no desire to argue with her. Still, he was impressed how easy she was able to get into this area. Although looking the part was most of the battle, her glib, causal tone was a big help. This was why she was so frightening; she knew she could get in anywhere, at any time. She had a gift for killing, and a gift for bullshit.  
  
She took a cut down an alley, and he had no idea why, except the minute she stepped into the shadow, she morphed into a tall, lean police officer, maybe ten years younger than the fire chief. She even morphed a gun, a cap, and a shoulder radio, although he was pretty sure neither the gun or radio would work. "Your powers are really no good here, are they?" She had changed her voice. Although still male, it had less of a nasal tone, and the slightest hint of a Midwestern drawl. She was genuinely freaky.  
  
It sounded like an accusation, and made him frown. "No, but I know Pyro - and Magneto and Mystique, if it comes to that. Do you?"  
  
Her now cornflower blue eyes stared back at him impassively. "I know Mystique too. She used to merc, do pick up work for an Eastern European organization."  
  
This was news to him. "Are you serious?" It would explain why she was such an experienced terrorist.  
  
"Yeah. Sometimes the Org worked with them on parallel projects, but that was before my time. She had a real rep. They said you couldn't trust her as far as you could sling a rhino - and that even went for the people who hired her. They called her the blue assed bitch."  
  
He fought hard to keep from laughing. "So you know what you're in for if she's here."  
  
"If she's here, she doesn't have a chance. They may be malleable, but she still has bones. I don't. Could she pour into my mouth and explode through my lungs? No, so I win." She started looking around the alley. This area appeared untouched by fire, although there was what looked like smoke smudge on the left side wall.  
  
"You've never done that, have you?" He asked, stunned. "You're just using that as an example, right?" She was silent for a long time. "Right?" Oh Jesus Christ; that had never even occurred to him as a possibility.  
  
She had to be making that up just to unnerve him. There was no way she could actually maneuver herself into a living Human body, and then push her way out. No way. But then again, there was no way she should have been able to become a convincing part of the wall and still be aware on any level. Man, she was frightening - no wonder the Organization treated her well, at least until they decided to eliminate all of their mutant operatives.   
  
"Hey, can you point me to the Loop? I'm lost," Brendan said, rounding the far end of the alley. He had soot on his hands, but otherwise looked okay, as did Bobby and Rogue trailing behind him.  
  
"That's you, right?" Rogue asked Cressida.  
  
She pointed to the small patch on her police issue parka. "I'm Officer C. Crumb, young lady - don't you forget it."  
  
"What's the C stand for?" Brendan asked.   
  
"Coffey. I'm Coffey Cake Crumb." She said, with a perfectly expressionless cop face.  
  
Rogue and Bobby laughed, while Brendan just snickered. "Yer lousy with the names, aren't ya?" Brendan asked, voicing what Scott was thinking.  
  
"Nope, I just think everyone in authority should have a silly name."  
  
"What did you name the fire chief?" Scott asked warily, aware that he was probably just setting up a joke.  
  
"Clem Lorne Clodhopper the Fourth."  
  
This provoked even more laughter, and Scott looked away towards the street, trying to conceal the fact that he was smiling. Okay, she was still a scary sociopath, and yet she did have her endearingly quirky moments. That's probably why the kids liked her.   
  
From this vantage point, Scott could see several low slung buildings that had clearly not been targets of the firestorm. And one immediately caught his eye - a bank. No, Magneto would never … why the hell wouldn't he?  
  
"What is it, Doctor J?" Cressida asked, in her Coffey Crumb voice.  
  
He ignored the nickname, but gave her a small frown for it. "Interesting how that bank is untouched, isn't it?"  
  
Cressida came up beside him and looked, while Bobby asked, "Is that supposed to be significant?"  
  
"Thievery?" Cressida said. "Everything I've heard about this guy seems to indicate that would be beneath him. If he was gonna go for money, he would hit fucking Fort Knox."  
  
Although he cringed at the language, he knew she had a point. This seemed far too petty for Magento. "Let's put it on the list as a possible reason; primary, if we find nothing else."  
  
Cressida shrugged, and then looked back at Brendan. "Get them across the street, and don't be seen. Summers and I can't draw too much attention to ourselves. As soon as the real Clodhopper comes up to the barricade, they'll realize they've been fucked over, and they'll look for the so-called Fed. Have an exit strategy ready if all hell breaks loose - we'll meet you back at the jet."  
  
Scott didn't remember giving her lease to issue orders, but he said nothing, because she was absolutely right (language aside).   
  
"What about you guys?" Rogue asked.  
  
"I'll get us out," Cressida said cryptically, looking back across the street.  
  
Scott looked at the kids and nodded, and with that tacit okay, the three started back down the alley, Brendan reluctantly taking the lead. He hoped they weren't pushing him too far too fast, but he seemed to be holding up well.   
  
As soon as they were gone, Scott turned back to her, and hissed, "Who said you were in charge here?"  
  
She gave him that blank eyed stare that cops gave you when they had decided you were the troublemaker, and they were a minute away from taking you down. "You don't want a body count here? You wanna get through this thing smoothly? Follow my lead. I was a high risk operative for twelve years, in war zones stretching from one end of the globe to another. No one knows more about successful infiltration than I do. I realize you have a lot of ego invested in being the head cheese, but you're going to have to give some of that up right now."  
  
"Because you say so?"  
  
"I trusted you people, against my better judgment. Don't you think it's time you extended a little trust in my direction?"  
  
He wanted to tell her "No, we weren't assassins," but even he knew how incredibly bitchy that was. It was important that they figure out what Magneto was up to before he struck more lethally; but it was equally important that he learn if he could trust Cressida before things got vicious. "Don't treat me like a non-entity. I'm not one of the kids; I want in. Is that clear?"  
  
She dipped her head to the side, and he supposed that was as close to an assent as he'd get. "What are you planning to do?" He asked.  
  
"We need to find ground zero. This Pyro - the kids told me he can't make fire, only control it, right? So the fire had to start somewhere. We need to start in the same place too."  
  
He nodded, surprised at how reasonable that sounded. Maybe she had a point about being an operative for so long. "Then what? And how are we going to find the origin point among all this rubble?"  
  
"Leave that to me," she said, then added, "Stay on my right until we're across the street, so you're not visible from the barricade." She then set out towards the bank, and Scott was left scrambling to follow.  
  
He just knew he was going to regret this.  
  
16  
  
In movies, the henchmen of bad guys were always polite and brainless enough to attack you separately rather than in tandem, which might do them some actual good. In Logan's experience, movie fight scenes rarely had any connection to real life fights.  
  
This one was no exception.  
  
Two of the big rock demons attacked him first (maybe they did their homework enough to know that Ressiks wouldn't last long with him), and for big ass piles of stones, they moved pretty damn fast. One came at him from the left, the other from the right, but were still almost shoulder to shoulder, adding up to a huge wall rushing for him.   
  
But the best defense was a good offense, so Logan jumped at them, arms spread out, and popped his claws just before his fists made contact with their thick torsos. He punched the blades right through, heard the spatter of gravel bouncing on the dirt floor, and they were so stunned they staggered back, leaving Logan to stand where he was and admire the two neat holes he'd made in them. The demons appeared to bleed a cascade of very tiny pebbles.  
  
He felt the shadow fall on him, but wasn't quick enough to avoid the anvil that fell on his head. Okay, maybe it wasn't an anvil - it was probably a rock demon's fist, but it felt like a motherfucking anvil - and it drove him instantly to his hands and knees, stars not so much appearing in his vision as exploding within it; he would swear he could feel his own brain slosh up against the confines of his skull.   
  
But even has his consciousness threatened to recede on him, he knew he had to move fast if he didn't want to end up flattened, so he donkey kicked blindly behind him, assuming these things were built so thick he'd hit something.  
  
He did. His right foot made solid contact with a gable thick leg, and before the thing could retaliate, he forced himself up to his knees, and used the momentum of slashing out to get him to his target. It worked, and he cut the thing's leg right out from under it.  
  
A really bad move, as it started toppling right over - towards him.  
  
Logan jumped aside, barely clearing the space before it came down like - well, like a ton of rocks. He ended up crashing into a table full of "I Ching" coins and straws, and it seemed to explode beneath his weight, sending debris flying everywhere.   
  
He was able to see from his vantage point on the floor that Yasha had gotten behind a Ressik, and as she snapped his neck with one hand, she grabbed his gun hand with the other, and used his weapon on his own men. The Belial dived for safety behind the counter, while she shot the other Ressiks. It wouldn't kill them, but it was bound to slow them down. One screamed and reeled back as she shot out one of his big lizard eyes, and another collapsed after taking a bullet in the knee.   
  
The rounds just pinged harmlessly off the stone demons, and he could see quite clearly that even the ones he had wounded didn't have the fight taken out of them yet. They must have been a hard to kill breed. Could they manage without their heads?  
  
Logan hastily scaled the nearest shelf full of animal skulls as the gun clicked dry, and he jumped from the top, aimed towards the stone demons he had partially gutted before. He sank his claws into the neck of one, but caught the other in the face - no matter. He yanked his claws through as he hit the floor, and quickly moved aside.  
  
Just as he thought, the one newly divorced from its head toppled over in slow motion, and hit the floor so hard he may have cracked it. But the one with half a face staggered around blindly, lashing out at everything, not going down and not happy about losing his best side. Logan intended to make a dive for it, but just then the front window display seemed to explode all over him, and something grabbed him and yanked him outside. He was almost sickened by the scent of burning tires and bile, and realized the Berserker had finally decided to act. Oh joy.  
  
He managed to work his claws free - it was trying to pin his arms to his side, proving it was smart - and sliced through its rubbery fingers. But as it screamed like a metal drill bit biting into pure diamond, it dropped him and backhanded him, all in the same motion. He flew half way down the street, only stopping when he crashed into and through the back windshield of a Honda. He hit his head on the metal frame as he smashed through the glass, and as he collapsed onto the back seat, the car jolted violently, and he heard a loud pop as the front tire blew out. "Fuck," he grumbled, rubbing his ringing head, tasting blood in his mouth. From the rapid fire thudding that shook the street, he guessed it was now coming to mash him while encased in steel - actually, a pretty good gambit. This was a Berserker who was smarter than he (she? How did you tell?) had a right to be.  
  
Quickly he kicked off the rear car door and scrambled out, barely getting clear before the Berserker squashed the rest of the car like an empty beer can, the remaining three tires blowing up like firecrackers. "Human, you cut my fingers off," it growled, in a voice that suggested a cement mixer. It batted the crumpled car aside like a Styrofoam cup. "I'll have to use your bones to pick my teeth."  
  
"What a pisser," he replied sarcastically. He was on his feet, back to a wall, and although most of his immediate line of sight was taken up by the huge, wide body of the Berserker, he was positive the streets were deserted. That was fast. Cowards.  
  
The thing glared at him, its skin as black as the night around them, its red eyes glowing like embers as its lipless maw pulled back, revealing layers upon layers of razor sharp ivory fangs. Saliva dripped from its jaws, and black blood, as thick as tar, poured from the severed stumps of the fingers of its left hand. "Well, Human? Is that all you got?"  
  
Logan raised an eyebrow at it, aware that any attack he could make would end with him getting swatted down like a bug. It had too much room to maneuver, and his head was still ringing from the car accident (although he was relatively certain he'd just made history - the pedestrian had hit the car). "Afraid to get close, ugly? Afraid I'm gonna take off more than your fingers?"  
  
"They'll grow back."  
  
"Oh really?" He'd never heard that before. It had the potential to be true.   
  
"Did you really make a deal with a vampire? How stupid are you? She just wants your blood. Even I can smell it; it's not right."  
  
"What the fuck does that mean?" He really had no choice, did he? There was only one strategy he could employ here.  
  
"It's powerful." It rumbled in its throat, like a car with a bad transmission. "Maybe I want some of that."  
  
"Come and get it, Mongo," he said, charging it. It was the only choice he had.  
  
Just as he expected, its intact hand moved so fast it was a dark blur, but he stopped short on his lunge, and, bracing himself as best he could, slashed out with both hands - in opposite directions - as he ducked his head low. Black blood that smelled of burning rubber splattered him as he sliced through its arms, and as it screeched in rage as much as pain, he planted a solid kick in its sternum, and it felt like something snapped under his boot.  
  
But the thing remained firmly planted on the concrete, not moving an inch. "Dirty little maggot," it spat, and its jaws snapped closed on his nearest arm, all the way up to the elbow.  
  
Yet, even as Logan felt the pain of its teeth ripping into his flesh and muscle, the thing knew it made a mistake. He felt its teeth shatter against the adamantium laced bones, lodge deep in his flesh, just as Logan let out his own scream and slashed its glowing red eyes with his free claws.  
  
It snapped its head back, releasing his arm as it shrieked, and Logan found himself airborne once again. By the time he tried to control his own direction, he smashed back first into the aluminum lined door of the karaoke bar across the street. The door held miraculously (well, it was a demon bar - presumably, they'd had worse than him thrown at it), but it knocked all the wind out of him as he slid to the pavement, very aware that he'd left a big Logan sized dent that the owners probably wouldn't be very happy about. Not that anyone seemed to notice right now. Inside, he could hear someone atonally howling Marty Robbins's "El Paso", translated somewhat ineptly into Japanese. It was so fucking surreal he knew, if he could have breathed, he might have laughed.  
  
The thing came stomping across the street towards him, blood and saliva dripping from its oversized jaws as one of its eyes seemed to be slowly running down its face. "Stupid piece of shit. I'll scatter your entrails for the crows."  
  
Logan was starting to wonder if the Berserker he killed in L.A. was a poor representative of the species, as this one seemed to be made of a lot harder stuff. Okay, so maybe the Berserker's fearsome reputation was warranted. But then again, so was his. He just motioned it for him to come on with one set of his blood smeared claws, because he still wasn't sure he could speak just yet.   
  
He used the dented door to help him get to his feet, and when he'd taken in enough air to fill his lungs, he asked, "Why the fuck do you want the sword?"  
  
"I don't," it snarled. "I just like to kill things." It then darted forward with surprising speed, leading with its undeniably lethal jaw, as without arms it was the only weapon it had left.  
  
Logan drove his claws into the soft skin underneath the jaw, and ripped in opposite directions.  
  
More blood splattered on him (and he wondered if he'd ever get the stink out) as most of the Berserker's jaw went flying away in two separate pieces. It reared back, blood spouting from the ruined stumps of its mouth, and Logan decided it was time to put the mutilated thing out of its misery. He darted around the thing and jumped on its back, ramming a claw through the base of its stumpy neck. At least he remembered that's how you did these things in.  
  
It slewed around violently, trying to throw him off, but he'd had enough of being thrown around like a ball in a pachinko machine and hung on. It didn't matter; it suddenly went stiff, and fell down dead, hitting the street so hard the pavement cracked. Logan jumped off the thing, trying to cover the fact that he was nearly thrown off of it.   
  
God, he stunk like a tire fire, and the teeth still embedded in his arm throbbed like bee stings. He paused to pull them out, and they felt more like porcelain than actual teeth. Weird. They even made a similar noise when he dropped them on the street.  
  
He started to stagger back towards Black Magic, only to stop short when he saw Yasha standing in the doorway, holding one of the Ressik's chrome plated nine millimeter handguns. She had a smudge of their brown blood on her forehead. "Wow," she said, her voice a silky purr. "You really could kill one. I thought you were full of shit."  
  
He did his best to wipe the black blood off his face with the back of his arm, and spit out some of his own blood before he told her, "I ain't full of shit when it comes to killing."   
  
"You sound like a vampire."  
  
He ignored that. "Where's Belial Boy?"  
  
"As soon as he realized he didn't bring nearly enough back up, he teleported out of here."  
  
"Shit." He was afraid he'd do something like that.  
  
"He'll be back," she replied casually. "Just with a larger squad."  
  
"Can we get him first? Hit Fujimori?"  
  
She twirled the gun around, and stuck it in the back of her pants. "A lovely idea, but I haven't been able to find his latest hideout. If I had, do you think I'd be here?"  
  
Okay, that was a point as well. Logan was forced to shake his head, attempting to clear it, as he started to feel … really funny.  
  
"Is something wrong?" She asked, almost concerned.  
  
Why had the Berserker tried to bite him again? Did it assume only his arms had metal in them? It seemed smarter than that.  
  
Why could he no longer feel his feet? Oh shit.  
  
Did Berserkers usually smell bad all over? So why had its teeth have an almost sweet odor? Like … anesthesia. Oh fuck. Now his legs felt numb. "I think I've been drugged."  
  
"What?"  
  
That's why it wanted to get another good bite in. If he went down, unable to fight, he'd have been an easy kill, whether it still had its limbs or not. That was pretty clever for a big ugly Hellraiser reject. And from the way the numbness was creeping up his torso, this was a new drug, maybe demon in design.  
  
Yasha seemed to believe him now, as she started walking towards him, her dark eyes wary. "We can't stay here."  
  
"No shit," he agreed, and collapsed to his knees. His mind was being covered slowly by an animate gray fog. But it wasn't scary; it was kind of fun. It seemed to promise a dreamless sleep. "I wonder if this drug was meant for you," he said, thinking aloud.  
  
She crouched down in front of him, and he could barely focus on her. "Shit yeah, you're toasted. I could drive a truck through your pupils."  
  
"Teeth. It was on the teeth." He told her, hoping she could figure out what it was. Or not - his system would adapt to it shortly. "I guess my blood's no good to you right now, is it?" He wished he could have seen the look on her face, but the fog fell over his eyes, and Logan simply let go, falling back into a warm and soothing oblivion. 


	8. Part 8

17  
  
"If you're deliberately trying to piss me off, old man, you're doing a stellar job of it," Lia snapped, sitting behind the bar, arms crossed tightly over her chest, her mouth curved down in a sour frown. If looks could have killed (in her case), he'd have needed to wear a protective cup.  
  
"Now sweetie, I'm sorry," Bob said, being sincere. "But meetin' in a bar is something nearly everyone can agree on."   
  
He knew it was risky considering all that had happened before in here, but he had bribed her with the promise of a beach house in the dimension of her choice. That wouldn't be difficult to arrange - but would workaholic Lia ever use it? That's what he wanted to know.  
  
So, the Way Station was closed to the public today and empty, save for them - a rare occurrence that still chilled the blood of the businessman in him. But he had the jukebox on to keep him company, along with the still surly Lia, as he waited for his "informants" to appear.  
  
He glanced at his watch, and knew they weren't really late; time was hard to compare in alternate realms. He sat at the bar, tapping his fingers on the side of his beer can, and started singing along with the song currently playing on the jukebox. "All those years you never knew, all the things that I could do. I kept them in a hidden place, so I could rub them in your face. Somebody says … I made you. " Suddenly he wondered what Logan was up to. Probably still off sulking somewhere, but he hoped he got in contact with him soon. He needed to know if Cammy had gotten in touch with him again - and what he may have done to him.  
  
"I'll hold your grace, like a broken vase. You've been replaced -"  
  
"Er, Bob?" Lia interrupted. "Is that for you?"  
  
He hardly needed to look where she was pointing, because then he heard the "plop", and saw, in the corner of the room just behind him, a huge clot of snakes fall from the ceiling. There were dozens of them, ranging in size from a couple inches to several meters long, red and green and brown and black, and they tangled together in a huge, impossible knot as even more fell from a gap in reality that opened up somewhere between the ceiling and the air.  
  
They flowed together into a single mass, eventually forming into a humanoid form, a stocky man made of multicolored scales, his slit pupiled eyes the silver of moonlight upon water. "Hey Bob," Degei said, walking over towards him even though the snakes hadn't completely finished forming his arms. They swirled around, making it look like his brightly scaled skin was boiling.  
  
"Hey Deg," he said cheerfully, gesturing to the empty bar stool. "Have a seat. Lia, this is Degei, the Fijian serpent god of the afterlife. This is Lia, my grand-daughter."  
  
Although she raised her eyebrows, Lia had seen and experienced too much to be surprised by a god made entirely of snakes. "Hello."  
  
"My pleasure dear," Degei said politely, not so much sitting on a stool as slithering upon it.  
  
"Fiji? A nice place to god."  
  
"Oh, I suppose, but I wasn't there for long. I feel naked without all my babies around me."  
  
"Babies? You mean snakes?"  
  
He nodded, as coral snakes shifted at his neck, making it slightly thicker. "I don't know how people survive in a single body."  
  
"It can be limiting," Bob agreed. "So, rum?"  
  
Degei smiled, revealing a keratinous layer he had in place of teeth. "If you have some, yes."  
  
Lia poured him a glass of the good stuff, glad to have something to do besides try and count all of Deg's snakes.  
  
"There have been some interesting rumblings in the Higher Realms," Degei said, as Lia put the glass of dark rum before him. He gave her a nod of thanks before his hand - made up mostly of garter snakes - swarmed around the crystal highball glass. "Most of it centered around you, Bob. It seems you haven't been making many friends."  
  
Bob sensed the rift behind him before he heard a voice, with the mildest tinge of an Irish accent, say, "That's what he's best at - pissing people off."  
  
"Gran!" Lia said, awarding them all one of her rare, beaming smiles.   
  
Bob turned on his stool, and gave her a familiar smile. "Thanks for coming by, Tary."  
  
Taryn rolled her bright orange eyes at him, but gave Lia a warm smile. "Still propping up his lazy arse?"  
  
"Don't I always?" Lia replied, unable to keep from grinning.  
  
Taryn De Cliodhna was not a god but a demi-god, semi-mortal daughter of the Celtic goddess Cliodhna (her namesake), proving he was not the only Higher who had "extra-curricular" activities. Taryn was also his fourth wife (or fifth, if you counted that whole Bastet thing), but their divorce was mostly amicable; Tary just couldn't bear this realm anymore, and wanted to live elsewhere, and Bob knew long distance relationships never worked, especially over dimensions. She now lived in the realm now as Mag Mell, known in myths as a paradise for the dead - Celtic heaven, in other words.  
  
"How are things in the Mag?" He asked, as she reached over the bar and hugged Lia, nearly pulling her over it. Well, demi-god or not, she was still stronger than Lia, who was just a fourth at best.  
  
Tary gave Lia a kiss on the cheek and then let her go, as a stunned Degei asked, "You're her grandmother?"  
  
Tary nodded as she took a stool between the two of them. "Indeed I am. Don't you see the family resemblance?" They did look somewhat alike: Lia had her honey brown hair, although Taryn's was curly and Lia's was straight, and the fine bone structure of their face was remarkably similar, from the high cheekbones to the gently pointed chins. Lia had his eyes, though, and her mother's long, lean body.   
  
But it wasn't appearance that Degei was talking about. "You look like you're the same age."  
  
Tary flipped her long hair behind her, and said, "Perks of being a demi-god."  
  
"Jack Daniels?" Lia asked, but she was already reaching for the bottle.  
  
"You know it," Tary agreed, then finally answered Bob's question. "The Mag is as fine as it always is. The skirmishes do not touch us."  
  
Bob could see, from the way his face seem to pucker, that Degei had a billion questions, but now wasn't the time for it. Besides, he'd probably have his snakes discover everything before the end of the day. "So what's the dirt, Deg?" He asked, both to distract him and to get this show on the road.  
  
Degei seemed to focus, the snakes of his torso briefly rearranging themselves as one snuck away. "Camaxtli had some supporters, and even though Eris dispersed him, they blame you for it."  
  
Bob nodded. He had expected as much. "Any big power players?"  
  
"Compared to you? No."  
  
"Yet," Tary interjected. "You know damn well how vindictive gods can be. And none of 'em have the balls to take on Eris."  
  
He shrugged, aware that was true, but it was surprising how little he cared. "It wouldn't be the first time I've been marked for a big old deity wedgie. I can deal."  
  
Tary raised an eyebrow at him, giving him a look that clearly said "All you men are idiots". It was a look she had perfected during their marriage. "You like takin' advantage of your extraordinary luck, don't cha?"  
  
"What good is it if it doesn't work for me?" He flashed her a grin that made her orange eyes narrow. He knew it was best to get back on topic before Tary decided to join the opposition. "I was wonderin' if either of you had heard anything about Cammy himself since Eris dispersed him. Like, I know his realm collapsed, but have there been other realms near to this one that should have collapsed but haven't yet?"  
  
Tary took a sip of her whiskey before she answered. "Not that I've heard of."  
  
"Nor I," Degei agreed. He had nearly finished off his rum, but had never picked up the glass. The snakes were doing the drinking for him. "But there is an … imbalance."  
  
Bingo. "Where?" Bob asked, trying to conceal his impatience.  
  
The baby snakes making up his lips twitched, giving him a grimace that was otherwise impossible. "That's been harder to pinpoint. It seems to be in the location of Kumiho's old realm, but I have no snakes there, so I cannot say for sure."  
  
"Kumiho's realm?" That was a real shock, especially since that one didn't intersect closely with this plane of existence.  
  
He could feel Tary's intense orange eyes scrutinizing him. "What's this about, Bob? Are you implyin' that Eris didn't kill Camaxtli?"  
  
"No, I'm sure she dispersed most of him. But I think some of his energy escaped."  
  
"How?" She wondered, not disbelieving him, just curious.  
  
"Camaxtli had an avatar, is that what you're saying?" Degei replied, getting it.  
  
"I believe he did. A native to this plane, but she's no longer here. She has been communicating with my avatar, though, so she has to be close."  
  
"Since when do you have an avatar?" Taryn gave him a small kick in the leg. Well, he had always disliked the idea of avatars, so he probably deserved that.  
  
"It's a long story, but I didn't do it. It sorta happened by accident."  
  
"How does one get an avatar by accident?" Degei asked.  
  
How did he explain this without sounding completely insane? "Arakis had a sorcerer pawn doing some of her bidding, and when I tried to stop him, he tried a switcher spell on me and the Human who ended up becoming my avatar. As you can tell, we both survived."  
  
Taryn tapped her glass with a green fingernail, making a small, musical sound. "Since when can a Human contain you? Is he of the Blood?"  
  
"He's a mutant," Lia interjected. "A stubborn, hairy, mean spirited little mutant who put a hole in my wall."  
  
"I patched that up," Bob pointed out, not for the first time.  
  
"Is this supposed avatar of Camaxtli's a mutant too?" Degei asked.  
  
He nodded. "Yeah. The unrequited love of my avatar, in fact."  
  
Tary winced. "That sounds like that sheep buggerin' gobshite."  
  
Bob couldn't help but smirk. Cammy did have more enemies than friends, but that was typical with war gods.   
  
"Camaxtli's blocking your efforts to trace him?" Degei wondered.  
  
He nodded. "The avatar he picked was a telepath and a telekinetic before her conversion; he may have found a way to make those powers work for him."  
  
"Shit," Taryn sighed. "Hon, I think you may be in over your head here. You couldn't even take Cammy when he was just himself."  
  
"I could take him," he argued. "If I was smart. I just never got the chance to prove it."  
  
"What do you think Cammy is gonna do?" Taryn asked, concern creeping into her voice.   
  
He wished he could tell her something comforting, something even vaguely reassuring, but he had nothing. He was forced to shrug, and admit, "I don't know. What Cammy has always done, I suppose."  
  
The ensuing silence - even the jukebox gave it up - was somber and depressing. Because what did Cammy ever do besides kill everything in his way? And what was in his way if he decided to make some hostile move on the Earth plane?  
  
Only one thing: Bob.  
  
18  
  
Logan figured he'd been on the floor for about eight minutes before she noticed.  
  
She just came in the door and started talking, assuming he was in the back. He heard her speaking, but most of the words escaped him at the start. It didn't help that she stormed immediately into the kitchen. He heard her banging cupboards, opening the refrigerator, angrily making herself a drink - hard day at work.  
  
" - Chihiro says one more condescending thing to me I swear to god I'm gonna kick him in the balls so hard his grandchildren will feel it," Mariko continued to rant, but then she fell silent. "Logan?" She asked. "You are here, aren't you? Or am I complaining to myself?"  
  
" 'm here," he mumbled. His mouth sounded full of rocks, even to himself. "Kinda still recovering."  
  
"Recovering?" She came out of the kitchen, and tried to trace the direction from which the sound had come from, and he knew she had found him when she gasped. "Oh my god - Logan!" She slammed her drink down on the nearest table and came over to him, kneeling beside him. Logan had actually collapsed in the entryway, but had managed to drag himself over in front of the fireplace. Someone - probably Akira, judging by the residual scent - had made a fire, and the warmth was nice after being in the snow. It also helped to conceal the general burn of healing.  
  
Mariko appeared in his line of sight, her eyes wide in her pale face, her hair hanging down and tickling his cheeks. "Oh my god, Logan, what happened?"  
  
He had to take a deep breath before he could speak, and he felt so feverish inside his own aching skin, he knew he might regret using his strength to speak. "Got ambushed on the road outta Hokkaido. A guy who thought he was kamikaze rammed the car, and then a secondary unit opened fire with enough rounds to make the Marines blush. Killed my entire first team, and half the back up."  
  
She looked even more stricken than before. "Ryan?"  
  
"I got him out, he's fine," he assured her. He moved his hand, found her arm blindly, and she quickly grasped his hand, interlacing her fingers with his. "He screams like a girl."  
  
She smiled weakly, and said, "I know, I remember." She gently touched his face, and asked, "What happened to your eye?"  
  
Since he could see out of his eye, he was able to tell her confidently, "It healed." Although the fact that she mentioned it made him think that the skin beneath his eye hadn't fully healed yet. There was so much to do, nothing was getting done in a sensible order.  
  
He could see tears starting to form in her eyes. "How badly were you hurt?"  
  
The room beyond her had faded to flickering shadows, and weariness started to press down on him like increased gravity. Conscious too long. "Broke my arm, a few ribs, got a concussion in the initial crash. Shot a few times, lost count. Lung punctured, got some internal injuries and some burns when I blew up the car. But they're healing."  
  
He had never seen a horrified expression so close up before in his life. "Oh … god. Shit. I should call an ambulance."  
  
"I don't need one."  
  
"Fuck you, you "don't need one"!" She snapped, tears starting to spill down her face. "You're laying in your own blood!"  
  
"Lotsa injuries, all at once," he tried to explain, feeling his grasp of words start to fail him. "Overwhelmed my system. But I'm getting okay, I just need time."  
  
"Oh god," she gasped, resting her head on his chest. He wondered if she found the unbloodied spot. "You can't keep doing this to yourself, Logan."  
  
"'s my job." He could feel his consciousness slipping away like so much sand between his fingers. In a way, it was catch up; during the ambush, he fought so hard to stay conscious he used up whatever grace period he had with his body. It was completely sapped now, and he had been fading into and out of consciousness ever since he got Ryan and the rest of his team to safety. He was actually amazed he was able to hold out as long as he did, but both adrenaline and pain had their benefits.   
  
"Getting killed in place of my asshole brother is not your job," she said, as much a statement as a plea. He felt her tears run down his skin, and he pulled his hand out of hers so he could stroke her hair.   
  
"Won't happen," he mumbled. Color was draining out of the world, and he felt like he was floating inside his skin.  
  
"You can't promise that," she said, her voice breaking with anguish. She raised her head and looked at him, wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. "If you keep getting hurt like this, it - "  
  
"I will always come back to you," He interrupted. He had to - he could feel himself slipping away. "No matter what, I will come back to you."  
  
He meant it too. She was often his only motivation to hold on; certainly ditzy, incompetent Ryan wasn't.  
  
She looked down at him, studying his face, and only the splash of her tears on his cheeks kept him conscious. Her face seemed almost translucent, like she was becoming the ghost, not him. "I'm gonna hold you to that."  
  
He nodded, and felt himself going under, slipping beneath the warmth of healing and exhaustion.   
  
As it had before she came home, he seemed to be in a constantly fluctuating state of semi-consciousness. He seemed to periodically wake up with no memory of ever being asleep. He heard her moving around, running water, but in the next second she was kneeling beside him, her silky black hair tied back in a ponytail, changed into one of his t-shirts and her sweat shorts. She dabbed his face with a wet warm cloth, wiping off the blood, and said, "You know, it's a good thing no one ever questions why we have so much bloody laundry."  
  
"I'm a bleeder," he muttered.  
  
"Don't you even try and make me laugh now, you bastard," she said - what she always said when he tried to lighten up the impossibly depressing. And she always said it in such a way that meant if he ever did stop, she really would kill him.  
  
He only realized she had peeled his tattered clothes off when she made a horrified noise, and said, "You still have glass in you."  
  
"It'll fall out." Must have been from the car. That's what had happened to his eye - he got a rather large piece of it, that stuck in his cornea and sliced his lower eyelid in two. (A high speed collision could instantly render a car a blender full of flying glass.) Ryan just about pissed himself when Logan pulled out the glass shard and threw it aside, shoving him out of the car at the same time, even though he could just see in the one eye. His sight came back fairly quickly (lucky for both of them).  
  
But Mariko went ahead and removed the glass fragments that she could, and even though she was exceedingly careful, she sucked in a sharp breath every time she touched one, apparently afraid she was hurting him. He told her he was beyond pain right now, but she either didn't believe him or didn't find that comforting (or both).  
  
At one point, she said, "Oh Christ, I see a bullet. Should I ... should I go get some tweezers or something? How do I get it out?"  
  
"It'll fall out,"he assured her. "The healing process will force it out. But when it does, you might want to get it away from the fire." He was pretty sure the round was harmless now, but better safe than sorry.  
  
He continued floating in and out of consciousness, although he was aware of her still, and the warm wet cloth she used to clean off the blood. He was also aware that, at some point, his left arm stopped feeling like it was on fire; the bone had finally knitted itself back together again, hopefully in the right shape. Broken bones were a complete bitch.  
  
"You know, I'm too accustomed to cleaning up blood," she said, with a sort of humorous despondency. It wasn't just a comment on him, but on her whole bloody life as the daughter of a major crime family. After all, she had seen her mother murdered and her farther gruesomely disfigured, and that wasn't even counting the relatives and personal bodyguards that had been hurt or killed around her. He hated to be responsible for even a little bit more, even though they both knew he wasn't even close to dying.  
  
She put a pillow under his head, but he had no idea when, or how long it had been there before he noticed. He did feel the blanket fall over him, as well as her sliding under it, carefully snuggling up beside him. "I can hardly drag you to the bedroom, can I?" She said, by way of explanation. "You couldn't have done me a favor by passing out closer to the tatami?"  
  
He was burning with healing, but not as much as before; he was almost back to normal (well, normal for him). He slid his arm beneath her, and turned his head, burying his face in her hair. It smelled clean, with a few scent traces of snow lingering in the strands. On her, it smelled beautiful, like perfume. "I love you." It scared him sometimes how much he did. He knew, in a way, that he shouldn't, not like this - if he failed, if anything ever happened to her, he would die. And that didn't feel like a histrionic declaration either; it just seemed like an inevitable fact. She was the better side of him; without her, there'd be nothing much left of him worth having.  
  
"You'd better, you stupid son of a bitch," she replied, trying to swallow her sorrow, burying her face in his neck.  
  
Logan almost slept, but not quite; he seemed to continue riding the waxing and waning tides of his own consciousness as he slept in brief respites between them - power napping. Often he did nothing but listen to her breathe, and, beyond them, hear the snow hitting the roof and melting, dripping down the eaves, as the dying fire crackled and sputtered. Sometimes a snowflake would make it down the flue more or less intact, and he could hear it sizzle in the heat. It was times like these when he realized that - for all the agony it caused, for all the unwelcome burdens of a life that seemed to stretch out ahead of him into an empty eternity - his mutant abilities could be a gift. Rarely, but sometimes. He knew a world that no other Human could ever know.  
  
He woke up to feel her kissing his neck, her hand moving over his abdomen as if in search of any still lingering wounds. As she kissed the underside of his chin, he smiled, and said, "You really know how to wake a guy up, don't you?"  
  
He slipped his hands beneath her shirt, enjoying the normal warmth of her skin as she covered his mouth with hers, but it was that kiss that was wrong. It was familiar, but not in the right way, and it confused the hell out of him. Also, her skin seemed to be getting even warmer.  
  
He pushed her back, and found himself looking into dark eyes alive with fire …  
  
Logan jolted awake, and for a moment, thought, "I'm in a coffin." But then his eyes adjusted to the dark, and he realized he was simply in the back of a van that smelled like a coffin.   
  
"Oh, good, have you sobered up yet?" Yasha asked.  
  
He sat up, and found her looking back at him from over the front seat. He was slightly light headed, but otherwise okay. "Yeah, I think so. Where the fuck are we?"  
  
"A van," she replied flippantly. She then threw something at him that hit him in the head, because he was still very disoriented. He looked down at it, to see a pumpkin orange t-shirt resting in his lap. "At this rate, we're gonna have to rob a warehouse in the garment district. You change your clothes more than Cher, don't you?"  
  
"Maybe if I wasn't savin' your ass, I wouldn't get drenched in blood all the time," he snapped, grabbing the shirt. Bringing it closer to his nose, he caught the scent that the Berserker blood was blocking. "Ugh. This smells like Ressik."  
  
"Well, shirts don't grow on trees, certainly not for steroided out muties like you."  
  
"Steroided out?" He repeated angrily. "Do I look like I have no testicles? Guys who chug steroids are fucking idiots." He peeled off the blood stained shirt he had on - and peeled was the correct term, as Berserker blood apparently turned rubbery when it dried (no wonder it smelled like burning tires) - and threw it in the corner farthest away from him. With great reluctance, he pulled the orange shirt on, and found it was actually a little loose on him; must have been one of the big ass Ressiks.  
  
"Fine, so that's another mutant ability of yours, is it? Big muscles?"  
  
"It's my metal," he said, and it fell out of his mouth before he realized what he was saying. "It's added weight to my frame, my muscles had to adapt to it, otherwise I'd be tearing them every time I raised my arm."  
  
She stared at him over the seat, and her eyes were chatoyant in the dim light, like a cat's. "Your metal? It's not just in your arms, is it?"  
  
She didn't know? Well, how the hell would she know? "No; my entire skeleton's coated in adamantium." And for some reason, remembering what it felt like to have a broken arm, to feel it healing itself up, was almost nostalgic.   
  
She let out a low whistle. "No wonder it was so difficult to drag you into the back. I thought I was goin' all wimpy over here."  
  
"That's another possibility." He sniffed the shirt, and grimaced. "Does Ressik ever come out?" It smelled like rotting leaves, which was not a bad scent in itself, but seemed wrong on a living being.  
  
"Oh, stop bitching. I snapped his neck; there's no blood on that one."  
  
"Gee thanks." He dry washed his face, hoping he wasn't just spreading more blood around, and felt a muscle only now start to loosen somewhere in the vicinity of his gut. Jean had interrupted his memory of Mariko, didn't she? Or was he dreaming? He'd been pumped full of some kind of drug - it could have been a hallucination. It most likely was. (Why didn't it feel that way?) Silently, he was furious with her - how dare she. He had so little of Mariko, so few memories, and she barged in and destroyed it. Why?! "What's our next move?" He asked, trying to distract himself from his own rage. "Do we even have one?"  
  
"We do," Yasha said confidently. "I found a card on a couple of the Ressiks that should be a good starting point. It's a club on the far side of the Shinjuku district, that technically Fujimori hasn't reached yet."  
  
"Technically? Meaning he has, but he's hiding behind a front, right?"  
  
"Good guess. Truth be told, I'm not completely sure if it's a Fuji front or not, but now's the time to find out. Only thing is … can you act?"  
  
"Act?" Maybe he was still in a drug caused hallucination. "Do ya mean like lie? I ain't a politician, but I can hold my own."  
  
"Good. Just follow my lead, and we'll be fine."  
  
He really didn't like the sound of that, and he didn't know why. "What kind of club is this, anyways?"  
  
She briefly ducked behind the seat, and when she sat up, she was pulling on a short wig, colored the same light brown that was currently fashionable among the young girls of Tokyo. "Come now, that would be telling. Don't you like surprises, Logan?"  
  
He glared at her. "Most of the "surprises" I get end with people attacking me."  
  
She gave him a wide, toothy grin that just verged on predatory. "Great; you're all set."  
  
Now he knew for sure that he was going to regret this. 


	9. Part 9

19  
  
They made it across the street without being spotted or shot at, which Scott considered a minor miracle. How did you extricate yourself from something you knew was a mistake, even though you were already hip deep in it?  
  
Cressida started sniffing a lot outside the bank, as Scott looked up at the dark wedge of visible sky. The smoke seemed to have stained the sky, turning it almost night time gray, but he was pretty sure there were genuine rain clouds among the lingering puffs of smoke.  
  
"Why are you sniffing?" He asked finally. "You sound like Logan."  
  
"I expanded my olfactory center," she said. "I'm trying to find the ignition point."  
  
He had to ask. "Any luck?"  
  
"Yeah, but it's weird. Since when is sulfur a common accelerant?"  
  
"Sulfur?" Rather than tell him if that was some kind of joke or not, she started wandering down the street, and he quickly followed her. Although police and fire officials were still abundant, he couldn't tell what they were doing if anything. He hated to ever think negatively of people whose entire job was protecting other people, but they just seemed to be milling around, save for the ones guarding the barricade. He knew that was lucky for them - could their sneaking around be half as effective if they were all on the ball? - but he couldn't shake the feeling that there was more going on here than they realized. He now seriously regretted letting the kids come along.  
  
Water from the fire hoses slicked the streets, and some of the siding and walls from the burned buildings had collapsed, creating hazardous debris piles that still smoldered in the middle of wet sidewalks. Miraculously, there was only a single burnt car, the charred shell of a Honda Civic far up the right side of the street.  
  
Cressida stopped in front of a multi-story but compact (well, for this block) building wedged between a water damaged deli and a pristine skyscraper. "It started here," she said, with a great deal of confidence.  
  
"It couldn't have," Scott instantly countered. "First of all, this building isn't burnt, and second of all, there's no police tape or fire investigators around it. If this was the flash point, don't you think someone would have noticed?"  
  
"I don't know. This is a pretty weird smell." She went ahead, straight towards the smoked (ha!) glass doors of the building, and he had no choice but to follow her. He realized if it was Logan saying this, he might be more inclined to believe him, if only because he was more accustomed to navigating by his hyper senses; Cressida just made hers up. And yet, even if it was Logan saying these things, he wouldn't believe this was the flashpoint.  
  
But as soon as he followed her inside, he was nearly pushed out the door by the hideous smell; it was sulfur and smoke, roasted flesh and … something else. He didn't know what it was, except it made him feel nauseous. He clapped a hand over his nose and mouth, and as soon as he was sure he could speak without gagging, he said, "Good lord, what the hell is that stench?"  
  
She must have done something to her new olfactory senses, because while she scowled, she remained conscious. "No idea. But it ain't right." If the smell was bad enough to nearly floor him, it would have knocked out someone with Logan level senses. He wished he could close off his sense of smell like she had.  
  
"No shit." He wanted to leave, but he knew if he never found out what the hell this was, he'd never be able to live with himself.   
  
She crossed the tiled lobby, heading past a large receptionist's desk, and glanced down the corridor on the far left, that wound down deep into the building. Behind him, Scott heard the door swing open, and as the kids came in, they were almost instantly incapacitated. "Oh my god," Rogue choked, doubling over and covering her face with her hands. "What died in here?"  
  
Bobby leaned against the wall by the doors, turning slightly green, but - oddly enough - Brendan only made a disgusted face, but seemed almost as unfazed as Chameleon. "Gonna need some Port Authority terminal strength Glade to get this stink out," Brendan commented, grimacing slightly.  
  
"This doesn't bother you?" Scott asked, adapted enough to the smell to at least remove his hands. But it was still the worst thing he had ever had the misfortune to encounter.  
  
"Well, yeah, but I've smelled worse," Brendan claimed, shrugging nonchalantly. "Ever smell a crack house?"  
  
"You have never been in a crack house," Rogue said scornfully.  
  
"Yes I have," he replied defensively. "But I wasn't the one using. I was just there 'cause … " He trailed off uncomfortably, and Scott suddenly realized why. His mother - Brendan's mother was doing time on drug related charges in Philadelphia, wasn't she? The kids probably didn't know that.  
  
"Cause what?" Bobby challenged. "Sight seeing?"  
  
"There isn't the time for this," Scott interrupted. Brendan shot him a grateful glance.  
  
"No, there isn't," Cressida agreed, and gestured down the hall behind her. "Have you seen this?"  
  
They all crept over, the stench instilling a strange sort of caution in them, and it took a moment for Scott to see what Cressida was talking about.  
  
Several meters back, about two feet from the elevator bank, was a big black hole in the floor. A hole glowing with a low, amber light from below.  
  
"What the fuck is that?" Brendan exclaimed, not even bothering to hide how freaked out he was.  
  
Being the adults here, he and Cressida moved slowly forward, towards the gap in the floor, and Scott motioned for the rest of them to stay back. It was most likely unnecessary, as neither Bobby, Rogue, or Brendan showed any inclination to move closer, and he couldn't blame them. In fact, he wished he could stay back with them - he had such an intensely bad feeling about this he was almost choking on it.   
  
Cressida seemed to length her neck so she could peer down into the hole without getting too close, but Scott had to just edge up and peek over the side.  
  
Did this building have a basement? Well, it did now - a basement that looked like an adjunct mouth of hell. It was full of rubble and rocks, churned up earth and broken concrete, all tinted with that strangely bloody orange glow. The smell emanating from the opening was one of sulfur and burned meat, and a dry smell, like someone left the barbecue coals heating for far too long beneath an empty grill.  
  
"You know, I don't think Pyro did this," Cressida said.  
  
"Yeah, that's the feeling I'm getting too," he agreed. "We should get out of here." He hated to be a wimp, but you had to know when you were over your head, and he knew they were. Maybe Storm remembered what Bob's number was.  
  
"Okay," Brendan said warily. "What the hell was that?"  
  
Scott looked around before he glanced back at him. "What the hell was what?"  
  
They all listened, Cressida probably extending her hearing to Logan level, but there was no sound at all, beyond what was going on outside.  
  
"You guys didn't feel that?" Brendan asked, and his skin had a slightly bluish-green undertone to it now; he was so freaked out, his demon side was starting to emerge.  
  
"Feel what?" Rogue asked.  
  
And at that exact moment, the floor collapsed beneath them, and they all went falling down into the basement from hell.  
  
20  
  
At first, Logan thought she was joking. Or at least he wanted to believe that she was joking, which was almost the same thing.   
  
The club was a nightclub/illegal gambling den/brothel called Akki-Netsuai, which, loosely translated, meant "Demon Lust". "It's a Human place for demon fuckers," she explained, trying to drive and put on black lipstick at the same time. "And a demon place for Human fuckers."  
  
"A fetish club?"  
  
"In a manner of speaking. It's where Humans and demons can hook up without scorn, or the possibility of being killed or eaten … in a bad way."  
  
"So how does hitting this place help us?"  
  
"Did you notice Fujimori and his Belial friend seemed to know what we were doing?"  
  
"Yeah. Weren't they scrying?"  
  
She gave him a slightly startled look, as if she was surprised he even knew the word, not only what the fuck it meant. "No. If we're lucky, we'll catch one of Otasuki's men in the joint - they're Kiji demons who love Human tail - and get him to tell us where Otasuki is."  
  
"Who is Otasuki?"  
  
"A powerful demon, a Raiju, who has a gift for second sight. If anyone will know the sword's location, it's it."  
  
"So why doesn't it tell him?"  
  
She uttered a breathless laugh. "Otasuki is a sort of hostile witness. From what I understand, it was bound to Fujimori in a ritual, and now it's stuck working for him. Still doesn't like it, though. It only cooperates to a certain degree, and, from what I've heard, Fujimori has tortured it to reveal the sword location, but so far nothing."  
  
He considered that carefully, sure there were several things wrong with the story, and not sure where to begin poking holes in it. "Okay, first of all, why would this Raiju tell us a single fucking thing?"  
  
She looked at him and smiled, and in the darkness, both her black painted lips and ebony eyes seemed to recede into the shadows. But he could still see the white of her teeth. "Because we will offer to free it from Fujimori in exchange."  
  
Now he knew this wasn't right. "You couldn't do that before?"  
  
"Not without back up, no."  
  
"What if it's not interested? What if it wants the sword for itself?"  
  
"That won't be a problem. The problem will be in convincing us to let us find it. The reason it won't tell Fujimori where it is is because it doesn't think he should have it - or that anyone should have it. It thinks it's best left alone."  
  
Logan shrugged, and glanced out the window, figuring it had a point. But that didn't keep him from being determined to get it.   
  
It was very late, and much of Tokyo had gone dark, officially closing shop for the night. Oh, Electric Town was still a glow on the horizon, like an urban forest fire, but much of the genuine Human parts had shut down for the evening. But if he knew demons, this was their version of happy hour.  
  
Indeed it was - he could see the cyanotic glow of Akki-Netsuai's lights before he even realized it was the club they were looking for. It was an old tin roofed warehouse that anchored a seedy block near the old docks, a place so run down looking that the crime rate was probably low due to the fact that even criminals didn't bother to come to a place this sad anymore. Akki-Netsuai was about the only building that looked like it had any signs of life at all, and even it looked like a rusting hulk vomited up on land in the wake of the last tsunami.   
  
Once she parked, Yasha pulled a spiked dog collar, seemingly out of nowhere, and snapped it on. "Okay, this is where the acting comes in."  
  
"I'll never pass as a demon, even with this hair."  
  
"I know, that's not what I'm asking. What I need you to do is this - pretend you're a demon fucker."  
  
"Pardon me?" He decided not to mention he had, but he wasn't a demon fucker, not as he understood them. He did prefer Humans as a rule - no offense to Helga.  
  
"I've never been in there, but Fujimori undoubtedly has men in there who might recognize me, in spite of the guise. I need you to act like you're in my thrall. Can you handle that?"  
  
"In your thrall?" He scowled at the thought. "You mean you want me to pretend I'm your slave?"  
  
"Love slave, yes."  
  
He rubbed his eyes. "Let's go to plan B."  
  
"There is no plan B. If you go in there and don't obvious "belong" to me, you will be swarmed by demons who think you're free meat."  
  
"I thought no one got eaten in a bad way."  
  
"No, but you will have to fight off all sorts of vampires and other demons while we try and plan strategy. Think that's going to work?"  
  
Sadly, that was a point. "And what of Otasuki's men?"  
  
"You've never seen a Kiji demon before?" She paused, and thought of way to explain it to him. With her black lips and short brown wig, she looked frighteningly young, like a teenager trying to look tough and slutty for her friends. "Ever seen an Ed Wood film?"  
  
He looked at her in disbelief. Was this a lead in to a joke, or had things gotten so bad this was somehow a relevant point? "Yeah. What, do Kiji demons have an angora fetish and a penchant for cross-dressing?"  
  
"No, they look quite a bit like Tor Johnson, an actor he used a lot."  
  
This was another fact he had to mull over. The name almost sounded familiar … "The big bald ugly guy who couldn't speak English?"  
  
"You got it. Although he could speak it, just badly."  
  
He continued to stare at her. "You're a bad movie aficionado, aren't you?"  
  
"It's hard to be a vampire and not be," she claimed, although the logic of that eluded him. She had to be kidding.  
  
But before he could accuse her of shitting him, she got out of the van, and he was forced to get out as well. How did one play a vampire's love slave? He was tempted to ask her, but was afraid of her answer, so he decided to just play it as if he was incredibly stoned.  
  
As soon as they were in sight of the bright blue neon marquee of the club, Yasha took one of his arms and leaned against him, hiding her face in the side of his neck. "Remember, I'm your super hot, forbidden demon lover."  
  
"I hate you."  
  
"Pretend it's lust."  
  
A huge demon in a platinum colored and impeccably tailored Italian suit seemed to melt from the anoxic shadows of the warehouse as they approached the door. It was a type of demon he'd never seen before: seven feet tall, as thick as a linebacker, with what looked like curving ram's horns crowning its bald gray pate. Yasha must not have ever seen him before, because she raised her head, and asked, in a slightly giddy "little girl" voice, "How's the blood tonight?"  
  
The bouncer scrutinized them both with his tennis ball sized yellow eyes, but they must have passed inspection, because he stood aside and said, "Fresh. Gotta busload of tourists in."  
  
Did he even want to know what that meant?  
  
"Sweet," she replied, with a slight giggle.   
  
As soon as the door opened and they went inside, he was assaulted by things that had now become familiar to him: the smell of too many demons (now commingled with Humans) in packed into a small, hot space, although the warehouse seemed larger inside than out (the Way Station was known for that curious distortion of physical space too - it put him instantly on alert); the sound of music, loud and pounding, although this was a curious cacophony - it sounded like a DJ somewhere was trying to merge Rammstein with Shonen Knife. And to his surprise, the lights were relatively bright - at least in spots - and mostly white and red. But far back, on the top of the rear wall, a movie projector was spooling scenes of the Evil Dead movies, more or less in time with the riotous, schizophrenic music. "What's with that?" He asked, nodding his head towards the movie clips. Currently, a puppet deer head was laughing maniacally.  
  
"Demons love horror movies - they're hilarious," she whispered, hiding her face in the side of his neck again. "Especially the Evil Dead films. Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi are safe from attacks for all time, you know."  
  
"I'm sure they're relieved."  
  
"But I hope the guys who made The Omen are in the witness protection program; everyone thinks that's dreadfully dull, and they all deserve to die."  
  
He thought the demons might have some film critics on their side, but didn't say it.  
  
Most of the Humans in the bar looked like Goths or sado-masochists, which would fit the profile. The club was dominated by a huge dance floor, and Logan couldn't believe people were attempting to dance to music that essentially had two different tempos, neither of which lent itself to easy movement. They were mostly Asians - both Humans and vampires (and the majority of the demons smelled like vamps) alike - but there were some Brazilians, some mixed races, and a few whites, so he didn't stand out as much as he could have. It also seemed the majority of the Humans here were men, which somehow also tracked.  
  
The bar, off to the left, was a translucent, curved piece of acrylic; the tables were opaque acrylic and bright plastic. No wood, no metals of any kind (beyond the tin walls), and he supposed the owner was trying to be kind to his clientele. Accidental deaths would probably cut into their reputation.  
  
He got a lot of leering, hungry looks from vampires - both male and female - but he didn't read anything familiar in any of their eyes. He searched the crowd for Kiji demons, but the crowd was so dense, and of so many varying sizes and lightning conditions, he couldn't immediately tell. A long, lean demon who looked not unlike an uncooked sausage (poor guy), wearing a strange, tube shaped t-shirt that read "Don't hit on me - I'm staff", came up to them and said, "We're having a special tonight - a two for one on sweet Bloody Marys and tequila sunrises."  
  
"I just wanna beer," he said. "You can get her a Bloody Mary, though."  
  
"Very good sir. What kind of beer?"  
  
"Tsingtao," he said, naming the first Asian beer he could think of (okay, it was Chinese, not Japanese, but from the neon signs, they obviously had it here.)  
  
Sausage Boy gave them a strange nod that was sort of more like a high bow (as far as Logan could tell, he had no actual neck), and then wandered off, slithering through the crowd towards the bar. As they found a blue plastic table at the edge of the dance floor, he asked her quietly, "What's a sweet Bloody Mary?"  
  
"Blood and vodka," she replied, pulling out a red plastic chair.  
  
As he sank down into his own seat, he realized she wasn't joking. Well, duh - of course a demon bar would have a Bloody Mary with actual blood in it.   
  
She casually glanced around, pretending to look up at the Evil Dead montage while scanning the crowd, and he knew something was wrong when her shoulders stiffened. "What is it?" He asked, rubbing the back of his neck as a poor cover for glancing over his shoulder. Even though the way he was seated put most of the demons behind him, he had an excellent, clear view of the entrance. He couldn't help it; it seemed to be against his nature to sit with his back to any door.   
  
"Some of Fujimori's muscle," she said quietly. "I recognize them."  
  
"They're coming this way, aren't they?"  
  
"You're good at guessing, aren't you?" She replied, and for some reason she got up. "They haven't seen me yet." She then pushed him back and straddled him, sitting down on his lap and coming face to face with him. "What the fuck - " he exclaimed, more annoyed than anything else.  
  
"Pretend you're enjoying it," she said, kissing him.   
  
His first impulse was to shove her away - he really never wanted a vampire sticking her tongue down his throat - but as he heard deep Ressik voices (even over the discordant music), he realized this was just part of hiding her face, as well as doing something out of character.  
  
He pretended to be into it, sliding his hands down her back and pulling her tightly against him (well, she did tell him to act like he was enjoying it), and listened carefully as they walked past. She slid her hands beneath his shirt, almost pulling it up as she moved her hands to his back, and her cold skin felt curiously good against his skin. If the Ressiks gave them more than a cursory glance, he never felt it.  
  
He opened a single eye warily, and watched the group - there were three, in similar charcoal colored suits with dark shirts and pastel hued ties - leave, laughing over something. He gave it a minute, just to make sure they were really gone, before he grabbed her shoulders and pushed her away. "They've gone," he told her, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.  
  
She gave him a sly look before getting up and returning to her chair. "Right, you're disgusted," she said. "Don't think I didn't notice you copped a feel."  
  
"I didn't," he claimed, then added, "Just a small one."  
  
"Yeah, sure." She scanned the crowd, shaking her head.  
  
"This from the woman who was grinding her pelvis against me."  
  
"I was not," she snapped. He stared at her, and she stared back, refusing to give an inch. "I was just trying to get comfortable. You might as well have a metal exoskeleton; I felt like I was sitting on a train track."  
  
"That could be a compliment," he replied, grinning at his own joke. No, it didn't make a lot of sense, but it sounded good.  
  
"Men," she said, with a scowl of disgust. She then sat up a little taller, and said, "There's one. He's going up the stairs."  
  
He turned around to look, not bothering to be subtle. He didn't even see any stairs before. But he did see them eventually, after peering into the darkness for some time. The lights had been positioned around them so they were a sort of optical illusion, a deeper blackness in the shadows. It was a narrow flight that hugged the wall, and he could see a glimpse of a meaty arm and a bald head disappearing into a small metal door at the top of the stairs.  
  
Now he knew this place had been mystically tweaked, because there was no way this place had been large enough on the outside for more rooms, and certainly it had no upper stories. "What the fuck's up there?"  
  
"Well, the use of the word fuck is correct," she said, getting up. She grabbed his hand and all but pulled him out of his chair, and started dragging him through the crowd. So that was the brothel adjunct? Lovely. He could have gone his entire life without seeing a demon brothel.  
  
He tried to glance around inconspicuously as Yasha led him through the demon-Human throng, but most were moshing to some weird combination of Nine Inch Nails and fast tempo-ed drum and bass electronica, and never even glanced in their direction, even when they shoved past them. He smelled lots of alcohol and drugs among the sweat, and many of the drugs were unfamiliar.  
  
As soon as Yasha opened the door and went inside, he pulled his hand out of hers, and reeled back slightly from a new smell - it was sickly sweet, and yet had an undertone of warm soil, like garden dirt in full sun. "What the hell is that?" He asked, shaking his head and sneezing.   
  
"Wenwori," she said, and when he gave her an evil look, she finally explained, "A rare incense. It's supposed to be an aphrodisiac for both demons and Humans."  
  
He rolled his eyes. Why did people - Human or otherwise - think they needed aphrodisiacs? Maybe the problem was they weren't attracted to their partner - had that ever occurred to anyone? "It stinks."  
  
"That is a drawback," she agreed, looking around.  
  
They were in a narrow corridor, dimly lit with reddish light alone, and it was lined on both sides by unmarked, whitewashed metal doors. A close up look revealed a small blue flower, like a violet, in the center of some the doors. Logan figured, from sight and smell and noise, that those were the occupied rooms.  
  
"What does a Kiji smell like?" He wondered, parsing the scents beneath wenwori smoke. The good thing about vampires was their very acute sense of smell.  
  
She considered that a moment, wrinkling her nose at the harsh miasma of odors. "Kind of like burned hay on top of pickles."  
  
"I got 'em," he told her, venturing down the hall, following the scent trail. It was like following a single line of static in a test pattern, but he could do it if he focused.   
  
There was a narrow red carpet that muffled their footsteps, good for sneaking up on the demon, although it was threadbare and stained with spilled drinks and - most revoltingly - various body fluids. It wasn't an upscale brothel, that was for damn sure.  
  
"I'm impressed you can follow it," she admitted reluctantly. "I'm finding it hard to concentrate with all this stink."  
  
"Yeah, it's pretty bad." He was starting to feel a little dizzy, with a tiny ache just starting to bloom in the center of his forehead, just behind his eyes. The only music they could hear in here was the deep, frenetic throb of the bass line, and it seemed to mimic the pulsing pain in his head. God, they needed an air conditioner or something; he was starting to sweat, making his Ressik t-shirt stick to his skin like glue. And wet Ressik didn't smell too good.  
  
Finally, he saw his target at the end of an L bend in the corridor. "Second to last room on the right," he told her. "He went in there."  
  
He saw her stare at him out of the corner of his eye. "You're really a bloodhound, aren't you? Just like a vampire."  
  
"Stop saying that," he growled. "I'm nothin' like you cr - " But his insult was cut short by a high pitched, female scream - eminating directly from the second to last room on the right.  
  
"Oh fuck," he grumbled, breaking into a run. "Hero time."  
  
He didn't look back to see if Yasha followed him, but he really didn't care as he threw himself bodily into the door, breaking it down as easily as if it was made of balsa wood. 


	10. Part 10

Logan had expected to be greeted by some scene of violence, but hadn't been prepared for what actually faced him.  
  
The Kiji was standing at the foot of a bed, dressed in nothing but a bright pink thong, showing off a flabby ass that was easily the size of a footstool, while on the bed was a fearful looking Japanese woman - who smelled more bored than scared.  
  
They both looked back at him like he had freaked them out completely, and the woman, sitting up and pulling the sheet over herself, snapped, "Do you mind? This room is taken!" Her heavily painted dark eyes were seriously frosty.  
  
The Kiji was like a sumo wrestler, only his girth wasn't limited to his belly; he was all round and protruding, like a flesh colored ostrich egg balancing on two bloated legs like oversized summer sausages. His bulbous head was wrinkled like an ugli fruit, and his tiny eyes were almost lost beneath a heavy brow that seemed to slope downward, like an eave on a roof. "Who the fuck are you?" The Kiji exclaimed, sounding like he had a mouth full of mashed potatoes.  
  
"I was about to say," Yasha said, standing in the doorway behind him. "No one screams up here and means it."  
  
The Kiji's eyes narrowed until they almost disappeared completely inside his large, fleshy face. "Don't I know you?" He asked Yasha suspiciously.  
  
Yasha came inside, treading carefully over the fallen door, and said to the hooker, "You may want to get out of here, sister." She morphed into vamp face, which looked especially menacing with the black lipstick. "This is between us demons." Logan didn't bother to point out he wasn't a demon, because it was probably better that they thought he was.  
  
The hooker shot her a look that could have stripped paint off the walls, so accustomed to demons that even vampires didn't scare her anymore. She wrapped the sheet around herself once she stood up, and walked past them with an aggrieved sort of dignity, chin held hide. "Goddamn demons," she sniffed, as she went out the door.  
  
"Yer gonna be payin' me for that," the Kiji demanded, turning around to face them. Logan rather wished he stayed with his back to them, because, while his big flabby butt cheeks were bad, at least he was spared the sight of a bulging pink thong. He looked away, wondering if the incense was a drug to keep the hookers from laughing or being revolted. "She cost half my check."  
  
"Tell us where Otasuki is, and you can go back to playing out your rapist demon fantasy with your rental girlfriend," Yasha replied, giving him a look of thinly veiled disgust. "And for god sake's, man, no one over two hundred pounds is supposed to wear a thong."  
  
He cocked his head like a confused parakeet, scrutinizing her. "Who the fuck is Otasuki, bloodsucker?"  
  
She sighed impatiently, her now yellow eyes rolling in disbelief. "Logan, would you like to do the honors?"  
  
He shrugged, arms crossed over his chest, and snapped a kick that hit the Kiji in the right kneecap. Logan had kept his foot flat, so when it impacted with his leg, there was a deep crack, and the Kiji's knee bent the opposite way.  
  
He let out a shout of surprise as much as pain, and flopped onto the thin red carpet like a whale dropped from a helicopter. Logan was amazed he didn't crash right through the floor.   
  
"I like your style," Yasha told him, giving him an admiring smile. In her vamp face, it was slightly disturbing. "You can be amazingly cool - for a Human."  
  
He didn't know how to take that, so he just shrugged again.  
  
"Fuckin' asshole, you broke my leg!" The Kiji wailed, sitting back against the bed and grabbing his knee. The bed actually shifted back due to his weight, and Logan wondered how much he actually weighed - four hundred pounds?  
  
"How observant of you," Yasha replied sarcastically. "Now, do you talk, or do we start playing Twister with the rest of your limbs?"  
  
"Fuck you, parasitic bastard trash," the Kiji spat, spittle making his grayish pink lips shine. "I ain't telling you shit."  
  
Yasha glanced at him again. "Can you show two tons of fun here what you've got hidden up your sleeve?"  
  
That was momentarily confusing. "What I got up my sleeve?"  
  
"The snikt thing?"  
  
"The sni - " Finally Logan figured it out. "Oh, that." Logan held his fist out towards the Kiji's face, and popped his claws. The Kiji snapped his head back violently, and his eyes widened enough that he could actually see them.   
  
"What the fuck are you?" The rotund demon asked.  
  
"He's a Human whose mastery of the blade is almost equal to mine," Yasha said, suddenly holding a knife of her own. It was a wickedly sharp eight inch deba, with a black grip handle; a combat knife, made to slip between ribs like they were butter.  
  
"He's no fucking Human!" The Kiji exclaimed indignantly. "No Human can hurt me!" But then something like fear entered his eyes, and his jaw slackened slightly in awe. "Yer … yer Lady Blood, ain't cha?"  
  
She smiled, her yellow eyes lambent with mirth. "Yes. Now, are you going to talk, or do we cut you open and count your rings?"  
  
The Kiji smelled more pickle like when he was afraid. "F- Fujimori will kill me - "  
  
Logan sighed loudly. Hadn't he heard this before? "Look - die now, or live to fight another day. I hate this place, the stink is giving me a headache, I never got my beer, and I coulda lived my entire fucking life without seeing an ugly bastard like you in a thong. Now spill it, or I'll use your head like a fucking piñata."  
  
The Kiji looked between then, and his black button eyes gleamed, as if he was on the verge of tears. "He has it in what looks like an old shack near the ancient Zen temple in Kamaura, at the edge of a bamboo plantation. But I didn't tell you that; I've never seen you, either of you."  
  
Logan looked at Yasha. "Sound about right to you?"  
  
She nodded. "I think our friend cooperated." She then spun into a savage roundhouse kick, that connected so violently with the Kiji's head he was sure he heard something snap before the Kiji slumped onto the floor, the world's heavy sack of shit.  
  
Yasha slipped the knife back in her boot, and held her arm out towards him. "Shall we?"  
  
This all seemed slightly surreal somehow; maybe it was an effect of the incense. He retracted his claws, and linked his arm in hers. "Let's."  
  
Could life get any weirder?  
  
21  
  
Scott came to, relatively sure he was on fire. He thought he could smell his flesh roasting, feel the heat cooking him from the inside out.  
  
He jolted awake, feeling liquid he was sure was blood crawling down his cheek, but when he shoved himself up, he saw a translucent pillar growing out of the corner of his eye, and realized he must have landed in a bit of Cressida after she went liquid for the fall.  
  
The fall.  
  
"Is everyone okay?" He said, before he was even certain he could speak. But somehow he managed.  
  
"No," Brendan shot back savagely. "We just fell through a fucking floor! We are not okay!"  
  
"I'm okay," Cressida said, deadpan. "But then, I'm always okay."  
  
Scott sat up, feeling his head throb and his ribs ache, and he wondered if he broke something. Looking up, he judged them to be at least twenty feet down, which wasn't enough of a fall to be fatal, but it could - like Brendan claimed - hurt.   
  
In spite of his obvious pained rage, Brendan - now in full demon mode, which probably helped him recover from the fall - was the only one on his feet, besides Cressida. Rogue was coming around now, and next to her, Bobby was starting to stir. Everyone looked more or less okay, but how much could you tell from a quick glance?  
  
He got to his feet, doing his best to ignore the pain (he bet he was going to be a mass of bruises later on), and looked around at their surroundings. It was no better close up than it had been far away; a rubble strewn area that mimicked the upper floor, as hot as an oven, with what looked like violently red pools of lava in the corners, somehow providing enough light to illuminate the whole basement. He knew lava didn't glow, nor was it quite that red, but he almost didn't want to know what it was. He needed to get the kids out of here now.  
  
"Ow," Bobby exclaimed, sitting up and grabbing his leg. "I think I hurt my ankle."  
  
"You didn't try and land on your feet, did you?" Cressida said scornfully.   
  
"I don't remember," he replied, grimacing in pain.  
  
Rogue went over to him and crouched beside him, to have a look at his ankle. She clicked her tongue, and said, "It's already swelling."  
  
"Put some ice on it," Cressida replied, looking up. Although it sounded sarcastic, she was serious, and honestly, that's what you did with sprains.  
  
Bobby saw the logic in that, and touched his hurt ankle, moving his hand away to reveal it covered in a glittery patch of frost.  
  
"Does it help?" Rogue asked him, concerned.  
  
Bobby shrugged, and was clearly attempting to be macho. Too much Logan influence, although Scott had heard him admit to Ororo that watching Logan "go psycho" was the scariest thing he'd ever seen in his life, even including the soldiers storming in, and Pyro going nutzoid. Scott thought that was a good sign, as he'd never feel inclined to emulate or look up to a man he thought was one bad moment away from completely losing his marbles. "It's numb."  
  
"Come on, we have to find a way out of here," Brendan said, pacing restlessly among the rubble. He seemed to be studying the walls carefully, as if searching for a hidden access point, but obviously he hadn't found one yet.   
  
"What was it you felt, anyways?" Scott asked him, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his comm. It was still intact - that was always a plus.   
  
"Huh? Oh, it was just … " He made vague gestures with his now spiny bluish-green hands, his red eyes almost glowing like the pools. "… I don't know how to explain it. It was like … what's that expression? Somebody walked over my grave? It was just I had this sudden feelin' that something nasty was gonna happen."  
  
"You psychic now?" Cressida asked him, mostly joking.  
  
Scott carefully checked his comm, making sure no one else noticed him. He wasn't able to transmit a signal, but it didn't appear broken. So the only thing that made sense was the signal was being jammed - and if so … was this a trap? Probably, but who for? Certainly not them. But who then? The authorities hadn't even come near this place. "Do you think there's some way you can get us out of here?" He asked Cressida, hoping no one noticed him slip the comm back in his pocket.  
  
She kept looking up at the jagged hole of the floor above them, and scratched her head. "Well, I don't know. Maybe I can become a cable or a chain or something, but I'd have to spread myself way thin. I really don't think I can spread myself twenty feet in a solid form."  
  
"That's okay," Rogue said, draping one of Bobby's arms over her shoulders. She was trying to help him up, but was struggling enough that Brendan had to come over and help him up from the other side. "I wouldn't wanna climb you anyways. No offense."  
  
"None taken, chica."  
  
"But you can get up there by yourself?" Scott continued. She could get them some help, or, at the very least, steal some equipment from the firemen (which, knowing her, is the first thing she'd do).   
  
"Look, why don't we just try and break through a wall or something?" Brendan interrupted. "There's gotta be a sewer outlet around here somewhere." Bobby was now propped up between him and Rogue, and trying very hard to pretend he wasn't still in pain.   
  
"Ew," Rogue commented, wrinkling her nose. "I ain't walkin' in a sewer."  
  
"There could also be a water main," Cressida replied, sounding like the voice of experience. "While a flood doesn't bother me, how do you guys feel about it?"  
  
Brendan grumbled, but then he started looking around warily, as if he heard something. "Feel something again?" Scott asked anxiously.   
  
He nodded, panic creeping into his crimson eyes. "It's really bad."  
  
They all heard a noise this time, similar to Cressida going liquid and reforming again, but it was thicker somehow, like oil bubbling up. Scott looked to the puddles of red dotting the corners, and, just as he feared, they had become … something. But not exactly what he had expected.  
  
They were roughly humanoid in shape, and violently red, but they were not liquid like they had been in the pool (if, indeed, they had ever been liquid). Now they were living pillars of bloody red flames, with eyes and mouths that were just black holes in their chevron shaped faces. Their skin flickered, tongues of flames licking the stifling air from the crown of their heads to the bottom of what passed for their feet.  
  
And it was now perfectly obvious why Brendan was the only one getting a feeling for this; it wasn't that he had some "demon sense", it was that he was a demon, and so were these things. Shit.  
  
"You must be new; we thought we enthralled everyone," the things said. And they all spoke as one entity, their voice filling the basement, bouncing around the room. "The vortex requires sacrifices, but more than you. Still, you'll do for starters."  
  
"Vortex?" Scott asked, gesturing for the kids to get in close with him and Cressida. Although they were busy looking around, they didn't need a whole lot of encouragement.   
  
"What the fuck is this shit?" Cressida asked, clearly annoyed.   
  
"I'm thinkin' they're fire demons or something," Brendan admitted reluctantly.   
  
"You have got to be shitting me."  
  
"What is it you want?" Scott asked, wondering what would happen if he shot them.  
  
"We told you, stupid Human!" They chorused. "You dead. Do we need to draw you a picture?"  
  
Oh great - not just demons, but sarcastic ones.  
  
Suddenly Cressida lashed out an arm lengthened to a tentacle - a clear tentacle of water. It snapped in the closest demon's face … and put out his head with a very loud hiss. His body remained upright and flickering. "Anybody else want some?" She asked, as Bobby, getting the hint, froze the one to Scott's right, turning it into the world's most curious ice sculpture.  
  
"We have to get out of here," Rogue said. That almost warranted a "Duh", but Scott wasn't about to voice it.  
  
As if to prove the point, the demon whose head was just extinguished suddenly grew it back, and shot an arm of flame that Cressida just avoided by going completely liquid. The one encased in ice simply cracked through the shell, which shattered like glass, and seemed to melt before it hit the floor.  
  
"That wasn't smart," the demons chorused, and a ring of living fire suddenly surrounded them, some extension of the demons somehow. "Do you really think we could be doused? Do you have any idea who you're dealing with?"  
  
"Tell us," Scott demanded, trying to buy some time, and noticed Cressida pointing upwards. He glanced up but saw nothing new. What was she trying to tell him?  
  
"There's a half-breed. He's no good for sacrifice." The demons said, obviously talking amongst themselves about Brendan. "Well, he can die anyways."  
  
"Would you fucking bury them already, Summers?!" Cressida snapped, gesturing violently at the floor above their heads. "We need to get out of here!"  
  
Finally he understood what she was getting at - collapse enough of the upper floor on top of these things, not only as a means to squash these things, but as a way to create a mound that would allow them to climb out. "But -" he began, about to point out that he couldn't be sure how much he'd take down; he could squish them all.   
  
Yet the flames flared, moving closer, and the heat was starting to get unbearable. He didn't really have a choice, did he? Damn it, he hated no win situations like this.  
  
Scott fired one of his widest and most powerful beams at the floor above their heads, and it punched through like the ceiling was nothing more than wet paper. He braced himself as debris started cascading down, but he kept firing, hoping he wasn't just burying them all alive, or condemning them to a fiery death.  
  
22  
  
Yasha got rid of the wig, dog collar, and lipstick in the back of the van while he drove, startled to realize he knew where Kamakura was. But he didn't tell her that, as he was in no mood to explain his Swiss cheese mind.  
  
"If the fight gets too close to the temple, you're on your own," she told him, climbing up into the front passenger seat.  
  
"And why is that?" He was starting to smell a set up.  
  
"Because vampires can only get within yards of a Buddhist temple or shrine before it really starts to hurt; and we can't get close enough to enter. Fujimori probably knows that, the little prick."  
  
He wasn't sure if he was being lied to or not. "I thought that was churches?"  
  
She shook her head, pouring something out of a velvet pouch, into her hand. "That's a fallacy. I've killed people in churches before; there's no actual protection there. But for some reason, Buddhist temples repel us. I finally figured out why - they traditionally do purification rituals, and they create a barrier that keeps evil spirits - meaning demons - out. No other church has any rituals on site with any real meaning; they're all symbolic, mainly to make people feel better."  
  
"So the Buddhist ritual is more than symbolic?"  
  
"Apparently so."  
  
That could be very well true - how did he know? And that was his main problem with this; she could be feeding him a bunch of bullshit, and he would never know. But he didn't think she was, for whatever reason, and that was the most puzzling thing of all. The objects in her hand glinted silver in the headlights of passing cars, and he spared a glance to see what she had. At first, they looked like the tiny toothed wheels you'd find in old fashioned clocks, but the larger ones underneath gave their true nature away. "Shuriken," he said. Throwing stars, classic ninja weapons. Overused in bad action movies, they had lost some of their mystique, but - unlike what those movies generally showed - you couldn't just "throw" them and have them work like they were supposed to work. They were weapons made for silent incapacitation and silent killing; if thrown with skill, you wouldn't even see them coming before they were in you. He bet she had real skill.  
  
She nodded, sliding the throwing stars into a pouch on her belt of knives, which she had put back on. "Even if I can't get close, I can still back you up."  
  
He probably wouldn't need it, but he nodded, wondering why and how she was so proficient with bladed weapons. Judging from the reaction of the Kiji, she was known for it. But did he care? "So what's your story?" He wondered.  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"You're not like most other vamps I've encountered. Most of 'em are complete dicks. You're not. I mean, you seem like something of a bitch, but you ain't a dick."  
  
She stared at the side of his face for a very long time, blinking rapidly, as if he'd just said something shocking. After a very long moment, she said, "Wow. That's the most insulting complement I've ever heard. Have you been saving that one up?"  
  
He scowled at her. "Okay, so I'm not very articulate. You know what I mean!"  
  
"Do I?" She glanced out the window at the dark scenery sliding past, and was silent for several more minutes before she said, "I was a merchant's daughter in Hong Kong, a long time ago. He was caught in the "opium war" between China and Britain, before the Treaty of Nanjing was signed. One stormy night, my father allowed in to our home a traveler who seemed to have fallen ill, but turned out to be a vampire - a vampire hired by a British General to kill my family. He killed them all, except me; he decided at the last minute he was smitten with my beauty, and changed me. Technically I did die, so he fulfilled the contract. He never told the General he had turned me instead of straight out murdered me, but that was for the best."  
  
He did the math in his head. The opium wars started in … what, 1840 or so? So she was on the far side of one hundred and fifty years old? Well, she was still younger than Bob. "Why? Do you think he'd have had you killed … again?"  
  
"No - it gave me the advantage of surprise when I killed him," she said simply. "He didn't even recognize me until I told him who I was. All of us Asian girls look alike, you know." She then looked at him with a slight smirk, her dark eyes glittering with dark mirth. "Except to you, of course - samurai."  
  
"Don't call me that." He snapped. "It ain't true."  
  
"Oh really? Deathless gaijin samurai? You fit the bill."  
  
"I do not. And I can die, I'm just really hard to kill." For some reason, this was making him uncomfortable for reasons that went beyond Bloody Friday - he had a feeling if anyone would understand that, it would be her. After all, did she not kill the man who killed her family?  
  
"Why does it bother you?"  
  
"It doesn't, okay? It's a fairy story, a pile of shit. I thought you were smarter than that."  
  
"I am, that's why I know you're hiding something," she replied coolly.  
  
"Not that," he countered. "I don't know anything about that samurai shit. For Christ's sake, Yasha, look at me - I'm a mutant thug. That's it."  
  
She was silent for a moment, and he thought she was going to drop it. But no, he wasn't that lucky. "In the book "The Way of the Samurai", the author claimed that at the highest level of study, the man has the look of knowing nothing. For a thug, you have too much control, and you know much more than you ever let on. I'm sure you fool many, but I'm too old and I've seen too much. Still, if you wish to keep your secrets, Logan, I won't stop you."  
  
"Damn right you won't," he grumbled, flexing his fingers on the steering wheel. He really felt like hurting something, so it was probably a good thing they were on their way to a bloody fight. It was hard enough to admit to himself that he didn't know what half of his own secrets were.  
  
Kamakura was - ironically (or perhaps not) - a religious center in the Kanagawa prefecture, absolutely lousy with Buddhist shrines and temples. If vamps were as allergic to them as Yasha claimed, then this was a perfect place for Fujimori to hide someone - and something? - from her. He wondered if the huge statues of Buddha and the goddess Kannon they had around here would affect demons the same way.  
  
The bamboo plantation, even in the dark, looked liked a sea of feathery green, undulating in the soft breeze, and he killed the headlights about a half a mile before letting the van roll to a stop on an unpaved dirt road. The roof of the Zen temple was just visible on the edge of the horizon, a negative space in the glittering blanket of the starry sky. But the stars were starting to slowly fade away, and he knew Yasha was running out of time; the sun would be up soon. They had maybe an hour at most before the sky would start turning light.  
  
"What's your real name?" He wondered, as she hadn't told him that.  
  
Her glance was wary, as if she wasn't sure she should tell him, or it had been so long she couldn't even remember anymore. But as she grabbed the door handle, she said quietly, "Mei Li Tai."  
  
"That's pretty." He meant it literally as well; it could be translated to mean "beautiful peace".   
  
But she looked down as if ashamed, and he realized that talking about her old Human life might be very awkward for her. So it wasn't surprising she changed the subject. "Let's do a two pronged attack. You go in through the bamboo fields, I'll circle around and come in from the main road. Is that acceptable to you?"  
  
"You'll be visible very quickly."  
  
"I know, that's why I'm counting on you to tear through their flank before they can get a major drop on me."  
  
She was trusting him? Maybe this was payback for him trusting her at the club. Or this was a set up, like he feared. But there was only one way to find out, wasn't there? "So what became of that vamp, anyway?"  
  
"Which one?"  
  
"The one who turned you."  
  
"Oh, him. I killed him too." She then opened the door and slipped out, quickly disappearing into the night.  
  
As much as he hated to admit it, she was almost a woman after his own heart.  
  
He got out quietly, closing the door just enough to keep the interior light from coming on, and moved like a wraith into the fields of bamboo. When he wanted to, he could move so quietly he made no more noise than a bird, and he did so now, all his senses extended and on high alert. He could smell salt in the air from nearby Sagami Bay, hear the rustle of rodents among the bamboo, smell cigarette smoke from the direction of a dilapidated shack on the far side of the property …  
  
… except that scurrying noise wasn't rodents, was it?  
  
He crouched down, scenting the air, dropping a hand to the dirt. He felt very minute tremors, something trying to walk softly but not completely accomplishing it, and between the thick stalks, he saw a glimpse of red.  
  
Red eyes as bright as coals, low to the ground, as if the thing was searching … hunting. Guard dogs? No, he didn't smell dog, but when the wind shifted, he smelled something like … old leather? Leather and dirt, saline and ashes. The demon equivalent of attack dogs.  
  
It must have scented him now, because the eyes seemed to stare through the cane thick stalks straight at him, making a noise like gravel in a rock polisher, and then it lunged, cutting through the bamboo like a machete.  
  
But he had been expecting it, and it wasn't the only one lurking in these fields who could move fast. He brought his hand up, popping his claws, and they punched through the underside of the thing's muzzle before it could even snap at his face. Still impaled on his claws, he slammed it down on the ground and ripped horizontally through its muzzle, cutting off its head. He almost felt sorry for it; it never even had a chance to put up a decent kind of fight.  
  
Whatever it was. It was about as big as a panther, but covered with black scales like shingles, and its head had been more wolf shaped, with an extra row of teeth. It was an ugly thing, whatever it had been, and its blood smelled like rotting lizard meat.  
  
He remained there, crouching beside its body, listening to tell if anything or anyone else had heard the sudden rustling in the field. But after the wind rose and fell, making the leaves scratch against each other, there was no other noise. Maybe it had escaped notice.  
  
He stalked quietly ahead, making his way towards the shack, but he didn't bother to retract his claws; he might need them in a second.  
  
He then heard footsteps, smelled gun oil, and suddenly a fusillade of bullets tore up the bamboo field. He hit the ground as several rounds slammed into him - some tearing all the way through, some ricocheting off bone, some just narrowly nicking him before he kissed the dirt. He laid there quietly, feeling the burning pain of healing as the bullets cut down stalks and opened up visibility in the field. They fired off maybe two hundred rounds before they ceased fire, and bright flashlights started to pop on.  
  
"Think we got it?" One man said.  
  
Logan just laid still, breathing through his nose, waiting for them to come further into the field. God, he was pissed; he was tired of getting hurt and bloodying up his fucking clothes (he was going to change more than Cher at this rate), and somebody was going to pay for all of this.  
  
The somebodies who started venturing further into the chopped up field.   
  
By sound, he judged there to be ten of them, and by smell he guessed at least four of them to be Ressiks. But some of them were Humans, making him wonder if they were here because they were the only ones who could get in close proximity to the temple.   
  
As he watched the beams of light close in on his position, he heard the crackle of a static on a radio one of them wore. "Report to sector one, ASAP - we have a visual on Lady Blood."  
  
Logan took that as his cue to jump to his feet and lunge at the men, claws fully extended.  
  
Startled shouts and staccato bursts of wild gunfire suddenly gave way to screams of pain and panic as he ripped through them like a scythe, using the pain of the new gunshots to fuel his already explosive anger. He wasn't even thinking anymore, he was simply reacting, and it felt strangely cleansing to be nothing but a tool of his own rage.  
  
He came back to himself as he usually did - ankle deep in bodies, splattered with blood, most of it not his own. The radio was now crackling with desperate cries for back up, as Yasha inflicted a little damage of her own, far enough away from the temple to make it count.  
  
Blood dripping from his sprung claws, he started stalking towards the shack, hoping the resistance there was of higher quality.  
  
Logan had been hoping for something a little more challenging. 


	11. Part 11

23  
  
Maybe practice had finally paid off. All those hours spent in the Danger Room, figuring out what he could and couldn't do, although the targeted destruction of a building he was in he'd never done before. And he seriously hoped he'd never have to do it again.  
  
Chunks of both the first, second, and third floor (and possibly others - he wasn't counting) started cascading down like an urban avalanche, and he was forced to blast several big chunks before they smashed them. But all in all, it seemed to work.  
  
The fire demons in front of them were buried by the incoming pile of debris, and the ones behind them seemed to disappear, as if not wanting to risk it. That was fine with him.  
  
He stopped when the mountain of debris was so great that it was literally protruding through what was left of the upper floor. It wasn't stable, but they could climb up it … he hoped.  
  
It looked as if Cressida - with a little coached back up from Bobby - had kept the rest of them intact. She might be of questionable morality, but she knew how to take care of herself, and occasionally other people. "Come on, let's go," Cressida encouraged. "Up."  
  
"Be careful," Scott added, but gestured for them to get a move on. There was no telling if the things were going to spring up again or not.  
  
He felt a cool breeze fragrant with smoke and rain, and realized belatedly he must have punched a hole through the roof. He wondered what the press people beyond the barricades thought of that.  
  
With great reluctance, Rogue started up, and Brendan went up, helping Bobby, who was the liability here. He gave himself an ice cast so he could move a bit better, but he was still having a hard time of it. Brendan - still in demon mode - was the physically strongest of the kids, and he must have known that, as he was helping pull Bobby up. And no one had told him to do it either; Brendan continued to impress him with his leadership skills.   
  
Cressida stayed down with him, and gestured upwards. "Go on, get movin'," she insisted impatiently.  
  
"Ladies first."  
  
She shook her head. "I don't even need the pile to climb up. Cut the bullshit and get moving - I'm the strongest one here."  
  
He was sorely tempted to point out that he just brought down a huge chunk of the building, but then an acrid smell stung their nostrils, and red light flared in the corners of their eyes.  
  
"Stupid Humans," they chorused once more. Scott was learning to loathe their patronizing tone, among all sorts of other things. "We are not just fire of the physical; we are fires of the mind."  
  
Just when he was pondering what the hell that was supposed to mean, he felt it - it was like a blowtorch ripped through his mind, burning away his frontal lobe, scalding all the neurons that mattered.  
  
Vaguely he heard screaming, and wondered if he was doing it too.   
  
It was reflex to collapse to his knees and cover his head, trying to block them out, but there was no keeping them away. Inside his closed eyes, he could see the flickering of flames. His brains were boiling inside his skull, and the pressure was building to the point where something had to give; he could almost hear the bony plates of his skull starting to creak.  
  
The pressure suddenly eased off - incrementally, but enough to feel good - and he heard Cressida shouting, "Shoot one, damn it, ease it off, buy some time! Help me here, you motherfucker!"  
  
Barely able to open his eyes and focus, he thought he saw a coherent red flame in front of him, and he fired at it, not sure it would do any good, but if it would stop her screaming …  
  
His beam put a hole straight through the thing, which seemed to look down at the gap in its torso in surprise. Scott felt the same way; and in fact, he could feel - the pressure was easing off. Maybe it didn't kill them, but it certainly made them turn their energy somewhere else.  
  
There was a noise behind him, a hiss incorporated with a scream, and he glanced back to see, where one fire demon had been, there was nothing more than a pile of granular black ash. Cressida had killed one? He wished he had seen how.  
  
He shot a hole through another one, aiming at its head, then its torso, hoping the number of holes slowed them down. It flickered in an entirely new way, and then he saw how Cressida had killed the first one, as she repeated the act on another one. She hit it like a spear of water,but rather than go through the thing, she went inside them, then did what she claimed she could do - she burst out the center of them, a violently charged snake of water. The demon then crumbled into a little pile. So water did work, it just had to be delivered the correct way.  
  
But the remaining demons ramped up the fire in their heads, and Scott had to grit his teeth to keep from screaming again. It hurt; Jesus, his neurons were being boiled, steamed in the cauldron of his own skull. He clenched his hands into fists but still shot the things, finding his focus narrowed to pinpricks. He was losing the ability to think at all; all he could think was that it hurt, and he wanted it to stop.  
  
Cressida kept moving, though. Maybe the thing that kept Xavier from reading her kept these things from affecting her as badly as the rest of them. She took them out one by one, stabbing into them and bursting out, and as the pain lessened, he started thinking that every mutant that came out of the Organization was a perfect killing machine; you had to be, or you never would have survived. It made him wonder - if they had kept him for any length of time - if he would have survived.  
  
The pain finally stopped. Cressida had taken out the last one, and Scott found himself breathing hard, unaware he'd been holding his breath until this moment - being in so much pain made it hard to think. The kids were giving them a round of applause from above, though.  
  
Maybe that's why it took him a moment to realize that there was something wrong with Cressida. She had reformed into her Human, bipedal guise, but her legs were still watery, and she looked like she was sweating copiously. "Are you all right?" He asked, climbing shakily to his feet. He didn't feel a hundred percent himself.  
  
She stared at him a moment, and her eyes literally swam; the whites turned to water, and seemed to run down her face. "Ah, bollocks," she said, and suddenly collapsed to the ground in a huge splash, becoming an uncohesive being of water.   
  
"Cressida?" He asked, hoping against hope that she had done that on purpose.  
  
"Are they dead?" Rogue called down from the remains of the upper floor.  
  
Scott looked down at the water pooling on the rubble strewn floor, almost convinced she was pulling herself back together. But it was just random movement caused by gravity, nothing more. "Chameleon?" He said again, dropping to his knees and reaching out to touch the closest puddle of water. He didn't know why; what was he expecting?  
  
But it felt scalding hot, so much so that he quickly yanked his hand away, and wondered how it could not be steaming. Oh god - they boiled her alive. By killing them like that, she had exposed herself full blast to them. She must have known what was happening to her … why did she do it? Why did she keep going after them if it was killing her? Did she think she was indestructible?  
  
Maybe. Or maybe she had what he thought of as the Logan syndrome, more correctly called the Organization syndrome: nothing beat her. If there was any killing to be done, it was hers to do, come hell or high (hot) water. And that stubborn myopia had probably saved their lives.  
  
And cost her hers.  
  
"Mr. Summers?" Brendan said, and Scott finally realized it was for the second or third time. "Is she all right?"  
  
The water was still far too hot, but he could almost touch it, hovering his hand low enough to feel the heat rising off of it. He was suddenly overwhelmed with thoughts of -  
  
(Jean. He lost her too.)  
  
- despair and guilt. This was his fault; he should have never let her come along. She may have been an assassin, but she was not a trained member of the team.  
  
(How did you train for fire demons?!)  
  
This was all his fault. If she died, the weight was on him. (Just like Jean.)  
  
He did his best to swallow back his rage - at her, at himself - and reached in his coat for the comm. If they were dead, then it should be working now.  
  
And maybe, if they were very lucky, Xavier could save her.  
  
24  
  
Resistance remained uninspired and unworthy, right up to the shack itself.  
  
Oh sure, there were some more of those hellhounds (or whatever they were), and Ressiks, and guys that looked like reject Orcs from Lord of the Rings, but the weakness in their defenses (besides being as unorganized as hell, and arrogant enough to think they could handle any attack) were what ultimately killed them all. And that main weakness was so many Humans holding the line.  
  
Maybe if there had been a mutant among them, or a sorcerer, they wouldn't have been so lame. But all they could fight with were bullets and wooden arrows (shot from crossbows that looked older than the men wielding them), and neither hurt him seriously. The wooden arrows might have taken out Yasha if they hit the right spot, but it was hard to aim when you were getting eviscerated.  
  
He took a few shots, of course, but strangely enough, the arrows hurt more than the bullets. Maybe it was because he got inured to rounds slamming into him, and his bones generally absorbed most of the impact. That wasn't so with the arrows; they mainly ripped through skin and sinew, shedding speed along the way.  
  
Even though she could approach, Yasha brought down several arrow wielders with her shuriken, which seemed only right: live by the flying projectile, die by it.  
  
The shack was far enough from the temple proper that Yasha was able to enter it (although she didn't look like she felt great), but that's when they had to stop.  
  
Logan figured there's be resistance waiting for them inside, but he hadn't been counting on what they saw.  
  
Inside the austere, salt smelling wooden shack, was Belial boy (Riley?), standing behind … well, a thing in a white robe, and holding a short sword to what was presumably its neck. From the way Yasha froze, he guessed, "Otasuki?"  
  
"If either of you fucks move, he dies." Riley said, explaining the patently obvious.  
  
"And then you're dead," Yasha growled. She was in vamp face, presumably from the pain, or just because she hated the fuck so much. "Fujimori will kill you for taking out his private stock."  
  
Riley grinned, showing teeth so perfect and white they must have been caps. "But I didn't kill him, milady - you and your hairy friend did."  
  
"That's never going to work, even for a lying sleazeball like you," Logan spat, shaking his head in disbelief. What was it with Belials? Did they think the rest of the world was stupid?   
  
The thing that was Otasuki made a noise like a jammed paper shredder; Logan finally guessed it was laughing.   
  
It looked like a four foot tall squid, complete with a slightly pointed head, and molted brown-black skin that looked like rubber and gleamed as if moist. It had but a single eye, a huge almond shaped opening that took up most of the space where a traditional forehead would be, and was as easily big as Logan's forearm. The pupil itself was a cloudy yellow color, like heavily sugared lemonade, and as big as a laserdisc. Beneath the white kimono, its shapeless body tapered into six long tentacles, which appeared held together at the bottom by a silver cord.  
  
"What's so fucking funny?" Riley sneered.  
  
"These two," Otasuki said, his mouth a lipless slit that suddenly opened half way between its eye and the sword Riley held at its throat. It sounded like bubbling mud. "They are mirror reflections, two species wanting the thing the other has. My heroes are made of glass."  
  
"Do they always talk like this?" Logan whispered to Yasha.  
  
She shook her head and shrugged. "I don't know. This is the first Raiju I've ever met."  
  
"I suggest you get out of here while you can, vampire," Riley snarled through clenched teeth. "The sun is chasing you, and so is a hit squad; Fujimori put a three million yen bounty on your head. You won't live to see sundown."  
  
"Three million yen?" Logan replied, trying to do the math in his head. But math wasn't his best subject, so he quickly gave up. "What's that in American dollars? Fifty bucks?"  
  
Both Otasuki and Yasha chuckled, and that made Belial boy furious. "You are in way over your head, Human," he sneered, and then said something that sounded like complete gibberish.  
  
Then an invisible battering ram slammed into his face, and sent him flying backward. If the door hadn't been reinforced - and he hadn't hit it at such an oblique angle - he would have smashed right through it, but as it was he just slid to the floor in a barely conscious heap, feeling the burning as his crushed nose started to heal itself. He could taste his blood as it trickled over his lips.  
  
He could now see that the ceiling was made of tin. It probably got really loud in here when it rained.  
  
"I'm glad you did that," Yasha said to Riley. "Because you know what would break the bonds Fujimori has on Otasuki, don't you?"  
  
That weird paper jam noise started again. Otasuki was laughing again.  
  
"What?" Belial Boy exclaimed, sounding exasperated. "Nothing can."  
  
"Not true. There's one thing." Yasha crouched down beside him, and asked, "You okay?"  
  
He glared up at her. "You're glad this happened to me?"  
  
She had the decency to grimace, which looked funny on a vampire. "It spared me from cutting you. I hope you understand in a moment." She wiped the blood off his face, but not away, like he initially thought. He could see it smeared all over her hand as she stood and spun towards Riley and his captive, flicking her hand violently towards them, sending droplets of his blood flying.   
  
"What the fuck are you doing?" Riley snapped. "This is Versace!" She then said something that sounded vaguely Latin, and that made the Belial snort in derision. "Oh please, woman. A spell is no good without power, bitch."  
  
Logan sat up, pretty sure his brain was done doing laps around his skull, and Yasha finished chanting whatever it was she was chanting. He thought he understood the last line, though : "Break the chains." "Let me enlighten you, Riley. Blood from a god will break the bonds."  
  
"Yeah," he scoffed. "So? You didn't bring no god blood in here with you, did you?"  
  
"No," she agreed, and Logan suddenly understood exactly why Yasha brought him here, and why she had never come after Otasuki before- even if she had, there was no way she could have helped it. "I just brought an avatar."  
  
Riley's bright blue gaze turned on Logan, the disbelief obvious on his face, but then the cord binding Otasuki's tentacles snapped. Belial Boy barely had time to register that fact before two of the tentacles grabbed his face and wrenched his head violently to the side, breaking his neck cleanly and swiftly. He was dead before his sword tumbled from his hand, and his body hit the wood floor.  
  
"Why didn't you tell me you needed my blood to finish this?" Logan grumbled, climbing up to his feet.  
  
"Would you have given it to me?"  
  
"That's not the point."  
  
"She is a vampire," Otasuki interrupted. "They have to perpetrate these little deceptions; it makes them feel they have some control. And what other control is she going to have over you?"  
  
Yasha glowered at the squid demon as it oozed across the floor towards them. "This isn't an issue of control. I didn't know it would work. As far as I knew, he was full of shit."  
  
"Hey," he protested.  
  
But she ignored him. "Besides, there's no telling if a real avatar would have enough of a god taint in their blood to make a difference."  
  
"Especially in him," Otasuki squelched, waving a tentacle in his direction. "Where his blood is almost a living organism independent of him."  
  
"Look, Squidward, where the fuck's the sword?" He wasn't sure if he had been insulted or not, but right now he didn't care; he just wanted the sword, and to be done with his vamp baggage.  
  
It made that odd laughing noise again. "You expected me to be grateful enough to hand it over to you?"  
  
"We don't want it to rule over people or slaughter millions - or at least I don't," Logan replied, doing his best to conceal his anger. "I just want to right a wrong, that's all. I fucked some things up, and I want to set them right. You can have the fuckin' thing back after I'm done; I really don't care."  
  
Its single eye gazed at him impassively, and suddenly he realized what it looked like - one of those aliens on The Simpsons, only without the fangs, ears, or helmet. Was this Kang or Kodos? "Some things, once done, can't be undone, Human," It said, waving the tips of two tentacles around, like a person speaking with their hands. "And some things happen as they may, and your appearance or perceived failure has no bearing on the outcome."  
  
Logan snorted derisively, sneering at the thing. It smelled like rock salt. "Fate, is that what you're getting at? It doesn't exist."  
  
"No," it agreed. "But destiny can. You should know that by now."  
  
"Are you going to give me a speech too?" Yasha interjected, crossing her arms over her chest and tapping her foot impatiently on the floor.  
  
"Why? It is much the same as I told him. Some of what is done can't be undone, not the way you would like it. Sometimes all there is is salt and ashes."  
  
"Can it, Yoda," Logan snapped, throwing up his hands in impatience. "We helped you, and you know we ain't the bad guys in this scenario. Are you gonna tell us or not?"  
  
It stared at them both, somehow grabbing them both in its cyclops gaze, and blinked, which actually took longer than he expected. Finally, it said, "It's in the realm of Yuki-Onna. See her, and if she judges you worthy, you will receive what you seek. But you will be disappointed; we are always disappointed when we desire what we can't have." He then made a deeper, more rhythmic gurgling noise, and suddenly disappeared, without a noise or anything else to herald its sudden absence in reality.  
  
"Well, that was bizarre," Yasha commented. "He could have at least bought us a thank you cake."  
  
"Yuki-Onna?" Logan repeated, rolling the words around in his mouth. He knew they were slightly familiar somehow, but it took him a moment to remember why. "The Lady of the Snow; the Snow Queen?"  
  
Yasha nodded. "The mythical Winter Ghost. I hear she's been living up in the Hakone as of late."  
  
The Hakone was the area around Mount Fuji. It had lakes and hot springs, lots of peaks and valleys headed up towards the mountain itself. For Japan, it was a pretty sizable area. "So you're saying she's not a myth?"  
  
"Are vampires a myth?"  
  
Okay, she had him there. "How will we find her? The Hakone isn't exactly a mall."  
  
"There are ways of attracting her attention."  
  
"Ways? Like what, splattering my blood around?"  
  
She frowned at him, like he should have known better. "No, and I'm sorry about that, okay? Look, we really have to get out of here; the night's slipping away, and I'd really like to find a nice, windowless room before I burst into flames."  
  
He knew she was right; sunrise had a smell, and he was starting to get a hint of it. It was probably just the chemical reaction of ultraviolet radiation hitting the earth, but it always struck him as funny that no one ever imagined that such a mundane act as a sunrise could have a specific scent. Why wouldn't it? "Do you know of any windowless rooms where I can take you, other than to a capsule hotel?"  
  
"My place. I'll give you directions once we're on the road, okay?"  
  
"And you still expect me to trust you?"  
  
The look she gave him was strangely disappointed. "I don't expect anything from anyone. It's easier that way." She walked past him out the door, into the violet gloom of very early morning, and with reluctance, he followed.   
  
Now he knew for sure that she didn't want the sword just to kill Fujimori. What else was she after? He knew he shouldn't care, but his curiosity was always going to be the death of him.  
  
Or at least he sometimes hoped.  
  
***  
  
Yasha lived neared the docks, in an old storage building with many "Condemned by the Department of Health" and "No Trespassing-Violators Will Be Prosecuted" signs slapped on the outside, over boarded up windows and patched up brick and mortar. It looked sad, an old building caught in slow collapse, which was why he was surprised to find the interior as lived in as it was. It smelled too strongly of sea salt and kelp, but she tried her best to cover the scent with candles.   
  
Once she lit some, he got a better look at the place (well, no light was coming in through those boarded over, blacked out windows). There wasn't a hell of a lot of room (it wasn't a big storage area), but she made it look relatively spacious and almost cozy. She hard covered most of the cement floor with a large throw rug bearing an odd madras pattern, while a tatami mat and futon were shoved up against one side of the wall, opposite a small t.v. in front of the are where the window should have been. There were several large cabinets, mostly lined with votive holders she lit with one of those automatic, long handled lighters, like you might start a barbecue with. As the smell of smoke and beeswax filled the room, he saw the cabinets were full of blades: katanas, sais, debas, kodzuka, kogatana, shoutou, shuriken, and going down all the way to switchblades and straight razors. "Should I be scared?" He asked humorously.  
  
She gave him a sarcastic grimace as she lit the votive candle in the stained glass holder on top of the television. "Should you? You're alone with a vampire with a knife fixation - I'd say that's a probable yes."  
  
"My knives can beat your knives," he said, glancing in the next room. It was tiny, and contained a mini-refrigerator, humming quietly to itself in the corner, and a very utilitarian shower stall, closed off with an opaque plastic door. What must have been her clothes hung in waterproof garment bags directly across from him, helping block out yet another sealed off window. It was somewhat claustrophobic, but probably better than a coffin.  
  
"Is this a macho thing?" She wondered.  
  
He looked back at her smirking. "Hardly, just a fact. So why all the heavy metal? I mean, yer a vamp - d'ya really need a gimmick?"  
  
She shrugged, and done lighting candles, put the lighter away. "You want to know the truth, Logan? It was something to do."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"You don't really now how long eternity is until you're in it," she said with a sigh. She opened one of the glass door cabinets and started putting her knives inside. "After the first few years, the thrill was gone. I traveled the world, I killed exciting new people in exotic locations, and I was bored out of my fucking mind. Nothing changed, and nothing was going to; it wasn't a great time to be immortal either, you know. No t.v., no computers, no sushi restaurants outside of Japan. I started collecting swords as a sort of a joke - I had a hard time getting anyone to teach me swordsmanship because I was a woman, but once I was a demon, I found some other demons who could. Man, woman, or other, we're all demons under the skin - Humans could probably learn a thing or two from us."  
  
"Well, except for the blood drinking thing."  
  
She simply shrugged, taking off her belt and hanging it up inside the case. "I never said we were perfect. It's just when we're all vampires, who cares what your outer race or sex is? It's all irrelevant. You're part of the tribe. But after I killed self-styled "vampire hunter" outside of Prague, I ended up with some knives - those over there - " She pointed to the case on the far left of the room, where lots of silver and filigree handle daggers gleamed in the low light. "And figured they're all blades, so hey, why not make it a theme? Learning to use them all, polish them, sharpen them … it gave me something to do."  
  
"I had no idea vampires needed hobbies."  
  
She had finished taking off all her knives (she wore a whole drawerful of cutlery as a fashion statement), and closed up the cabinet. "So how old are you, Logan?"  
  
That threw him momentarily. "What?"  
  
"How old are you? You look … maybe thirty? I'm shit at guessing the ages of Humans. But you're not thirty; I know that much."  
  
"I am thirty," he replied crisply, not wanting to discuss this.   
  
Her dark eyes were like mirrors for the candle flames, reflecting the light back at him and giving him nothing he could read. "No you're not. Want to try again?"  
  
"Fine - thirty two. Happy now?" Rather than wait for her to answer that, he gestured at the clusters of votive holders. "Why the candle shop? You obviously got electricity - why not throw a switch?"  
  
"It kills the dock smell. Besides, this place isn't perfectly sealed, and I have no desire to be discovered because someone spotted light in an abandoned building. Now, are you going to make me guess? Deathless and a samurai … samurais haven't really existed since the nineteenth century, have they? Although surely some survived into the twentieth … "  
  
He glared at her, hoping she'd get the message, and afraid she wouldn't. "You know, all I have to do to change the subject permanently is bust open a window."  
  
"Why does it bother you so much? So you're older than you look - what's the shame in that? So am I."  
  
"I'm not ashamed! It's just that … " he threw up his hands and gave up, pacing restlessly to the other side of the room to avoid her gaze. " … I don't know how fucking old I am. Is that what you wanted to hear?"  
  
He could feel her curious gaze punching a hole through his back like lasers. "How can you not know? Did you lose track? I know I stopped counting after a hundred and twenty five … "  
  
"My head has been fucked with," he replied angrily, turning back to meet her gaze face on. "It's been so fucked over I don't even know what my real name is. If something happened over fifteen years ago, I don't know about it."  
  
She looked curious, nothing more. "Why?"  
  
"Why? Why only fifteen years, or why did they fuck with my head?"  
  
"Either."  
  
He didn't feel like answering her questions, but if he didn't say something, she'd probably pester him about it later. " 'Cause I knew too much. Really, I got no fuckin' clue about that either. The fuckers never explained themselves to me."  
  
"You know who did it? Are they dead?"  
  
"Most of 'em."  
  
"Good."  
  
Now he really didn't know what to say. "Look, what about this Yuki-Onna thing? When are we gonna go?"  
  
"Well, while I can hide under a blanket in the back of the van, I can't technically go outside until nightfall - unless there's an eclipse, or a heavy snowfall, but I'm not counting on those. But since it may take us a while to get up to the Hakone, we can leave before nightfall."  
  
"And what am I supposed to do until then? Hang around a noodle hut?"  
  
"Actually, I was hoping you'd stay here. I doubt Fujimori would find me right now, but if he does, I'd be in a pretty weak position."  
  
He rolled his eyes. "Are you ever gonna stop usin' me?"  
  
She came over, almost stalking him, humor sparkling in her eyes. "No. I'm a vampire; we're takers by nature." She put her arms around his neck, and said, "But that's not always a bad thing." She kissed him, her lips cold, but the kiss far more honest than the one she gave him in the club. It was a surprise, but not much of one really.  
  
It really didn't feel too bad. She was too cold, but it always felt nice to feel female skin against his - even if it did feel frostbitten.  
  
"I don't like vampires," he told her between kisses. Well, it wasn't stopping him from enjoying this. He slid his hands beneath her shirt, and felt something slightly odd about the flesh of her spine, a minor textural difference. She had a tattoo there, didn't she? It was big.   
  
"And I don't like Humans," she replied, pulling up his shirt. "What's your point?"  
  
He no longer was sure. But it probably didn't matter anymore anyways.  
  
25  
  
When he woke up in front of a fireplace, he was afraid he was back with Mariko. But it only took him a minute to realize he was wrong.  
  
This wasn't a fireplace that was more for show than use; this was brick coated with soot and smears of smoke. It was utilitarian, and had been used hard. Also, the logs on the grate were not uniformly perfect; they bore knotholes, and bark still afflicted with eczema like patches of lichen. It was also barely smoldering, dying quietly in a huge nest of gray ash. And there was no carpet beneath him, just a hardwood floor slightly less uncomfortable than a bed of nails.  
  
He was in an austere, rough hewn cabin, thick with the scent of himself, melting snow, and burning pine, and he knew where he was. This was his life afterwards - the living death after Mariko.  
  
"I'm not even going to ask why you're with a vampire," Jean said, her voice frosty at the edges.  
  
He jumped to his feet, fast enough that he apparently startled her. She was standing beside the threadbare lump that must have been his couch in this isolated, lonely place. Her eyes burned brighter than the sputtering flames in the fireplace. "You," he snarled, so angry he wasn't sure he could speak. "How dare you fuck with my mind, Jean."  
  
She continued to stare at him, startled and yet somehow superior. "What?"  
  
"You know what. You barged in on me and Mariko, and I don't care that you're a telepath - I have almost no memories of her, and you had no right to eavesdrop."  
  
"Eavesdrop? Hardly. I brought the scenario out - how could my influence not be felt?"  
  
He was positive he hadn't heard her correctly. "What?" 


	12. Part 12

"I know how important it is to you to learn of your past," she explained. "I thought if I could help, I should."  
  
He felt like he had been punched in the face. "Are you serious? You fabricated that memory?"  
  
Her eyes narrowed, but the flames in her eyes flared more brightly. "I didn't fabricate it. There were bits and pieces; I just tried to string them together."  
  
"String them together?" He scoffed in disbelief. "So you made shit up to complete a coherent storyline?"  
  
"I made nothing up. I wouldn't do that to you."  
  
"Oh really? And I'm supposed to trust that, am I? I don't even know what you are anymore. "  
  
"That's a lie, Logan. I am me. Did you change when you started acting for Bob?"  
  
"No, but I wasn't transmogrified."  
  
"I wasn't transmogrified."  
  
"Oh no? Turning into living flame - you do that naturally? That a power you forgot to mention to us?"  
  
She smoldered brighter than the fire behind him, casting strange shadows on the barren walls of the small cabin. It looked like her red hair was actually starting to glow. Was she aware of it? "Are you angry at me or angry at him?"  
  
"Specify the him."  
  
"Bob? Camaxtli?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
It was hard to look at her face on. After a while, her eyes really did feel like they were burning you, just like the sun. "I've already told you, there's no blame to be had. If you insist on blaming someone, blame me."  
  
He snorted in disgust and turned away, feeling more comfortable facing the dying fire in the grate. "Blame ain't gonna change anything anyways, is it?" It was then he noticed there was a thin mantle above the fireplace. There was a small glint in the dim light, and after a moment he realized it was a gold ring hanging on a nail. Beneath was something that looked like a small black book resting on the mantel, but picking it up, he realized it was a picture frame whose backing had been ripped off. Under the slightly dusty glass, he saw a picture of himself and Mariko, although it took him a moment to recognize himself. It was always weird to see a photo of himself, especially a photo where he was smiling. Smiles looked unnatural on his face, foreign somehow.  
  
He crouched down, and tossed the picture in the fire, covering his head with his arms so he didn't have to watch it burn. He couldn't bear to watch Mariko curl up and die like a leaf in autumn. But him - oh, he longed to watch himself burn.  
  
"What the hell is that about?" Jean said. She didn't sound angry, just baffled. "Why do you hate yourself so much?"  
  
"Why? You still haven't looked very hard, have you?"  
  
"You still aren't to blame for - "  
  
"Go away," he told her, watching the shadow of the flames dance at his feet. He hadn't the strength or will to look up. "Let me have some peace."  
  
"Peace? How can you have peace when you think of yourself as the enemy?"  
  
"There is a kind of calm in realism, Jeannie." He suddenly realized he couldn't detect the chemical scent of a burning picture, nonetheless a smoldering fabric frame, and glanced up into the fireplace.  
  
The picture was no longer in the fire. He felt a surge of rage, but tamped it down as best he could, as he knew it would be wasted here. "Leave me alone, Jeannie. Why do you keep botherin' me?"  
  
"I'm not sure I can talk to anyone else without harming them. Yet."  
  
"Yer harmin' me. Do you care?"  
  
"I'm not harming you." She paused briefly, and he sensed the doubt before she even spoke. "Am I?"  
  
"All I want is some peace. I don't get much, ya know? I just want … I don't know what I want."  
  
"You want to die." She said it solemnly, like the thought was depressing.  
  
"So what if I do? It ain't ever gonna happen."  
  
"It could, and may. Stop it, Logan. Stop it now."  
  
"Stop what? Thinking nasty thoughts?" He snickered. "Stop my self-destructive habits that - ironically - never hurt me? Stop bein' a self-pitying sack of shit?"  
  
"If I told you I loved you, would it make any difference?"  
  
It felt like she had just thrown ice water on him. He stood up and turned around slowly, warily, trying futilely to keep his rage in check. An angry sort of sorrow rose in his throat like bile. "Don't you do that. Don't you lie to me and - "  
  
"I'm not lying," she claimed. She wasn't glowing so much anymore, and he figured she had gotten her own anger under control. If anything, she looked sad.  
  
He could feel his resistance crumbling, giving way to this bleak sorrow that threatened to suffocate him. There were so many ghosts in this room, and he was one of them. "Get out of here. Leave me the fuck alone."  
  
"You won't listen at all, will you?"  
  
"I have been listening, and now I'm done. Get out, or I'm gonna start ruminating on being vivisected."  
  
Her eyes glowed in the growing dark. "I can take it away," she said, her voice like a soft breeze.  
  
Logan had no idea what woke him up. Maybe it was just his heart pounding double time, and the lingering fear in what she said to him. Did she mean what he thought she meant?  
  
He stared up at the ceiling for a while, watching the shadows of the candle flames flicker and dart on the ceiling. Yasha's shack was a lot like his old Alberta cabin, wasn't it?  
  
She was sleeping beside him, on her side, so he could clearly see the tattoo on her back. It was a multicolored serpent - mostly metallic green and red, with black diamonds on its back - twining around her spine like an optical illusion, its raised hear and open jaws just ending in the space between her shoulder blades. It was a beautiful bit of work, and he couldn't imagine how long it must have taken to have done.  
  
There was no way he was getting back to sleep, and he knew it. So he quietly got up and collected his clothes, putting them on roughly in the order he found them. There was still some blood on them, but fuck it; it was a dock, and they could just assume it was mud or fish guts.   
  
He had to take a piss anyways (vampires apparently had no need for toilets - that must have saved them oodles of time), and he knew there was one of those noodle shacks down at the end of the pier - if he was going out anyways, he might as well get something to eat. She'd be okay for five minutes, and he'd keep this end of the dock in sight at all times, so if there was trouble, he could get back in time.  
  
Once outside, he was surprised at how gray the day was; cold rain pelted down like stones from the sky, and the sea was a choppy froth of slate. Fishing probably sucked today, so there wouldn't be a lot of foot traffic.  
  
He was right - he was the only customer at the noodle shack, and the grizzled old man running it seemed shocked to see a gaijin in this area, especially now. But he seemed impressed that he could speak the language so fluently.  
  
Logan walked back to Yasha's place to find nothing amiss, and even though he entered the shack as quietly as possible, she muttered, "So much for protecting me."  
  
"Hey, I was hungry," he groused, sitting down on the unused futon. They had just sacked out on the tatami, and since they were both pretty inured to pain, it didn't matter. He was hungry, and yet he didn't get much, beyond soba noodles and tea - he was pretty sure he'd lose his appetite if he started thinking about Jean again.  
  
"So am I, but you don't see me sinking my fangs in your neck, do you?" She muttered, still half asleep.  
  
He decided to ignore that. "It's really overcast out there, and the rain's pretty cold. I bet up in the Hakone it's snow, or at least sleet."  
  
"Is this your way of saying we should leave early?"  
  
"Yes." The tea was bitter and astringent - real Japanese green tea - but he found it oddly cleansing and soothing. Once more, he wondered what the fuck his deal was. "What are you after, Yasha? I mean, Squidboy seemed to say we both wouldn't get what we want, even if we did get the sword. You know what I want - but what do you want? Beyond Fujimori's head on a plate."  
  
She was quiet for a very long time, and he figured she was faking sleep, so she didn't have to answer the question. But then, just as he took a sip of his salty soba noodle soup, she said quietly, "I want to be Human again."  
  
26  
  
Scott hated to admit it, and wouldn't have said it aloud for all the money in the world, but for the first time in his life, he was happy to see Bob.  
  
As soon as he told the Professor what had happened, he obviously called Bob. He was still at the bottom of the basement, trying to figure out how he could possibly gather up the liquid Cressida, when he heard Rogue say from above, "Oh thank god! You shoulda been here ten minutes ago, ya asshole!" She wouldn't dare be that informal with Xavier or Storm.  
  
He was right. "Hey darlin', I 'ported in as soon as I hung up." He then heard him say, "Why are ya wearing that?"  
  
"Hurt my ankle," Bobby replied sheepishly.  
  
"No you didn't," Bob replied casually, his loose Australian accent making it sound almost cheerful. "Brendan, how're ya doing?"  
  
"I'm about to run away to Iceland," he said, serious for the moment.  
  
"Well, why not, if you can afford the airfare? It's pretty there, and the hot springs really clear up the sinuses."  
  
"Bob, get down here!" Scott shouted, half convinced he was going to shoot him as soon as he showed his pretty boy face.  
  
Bob then just sort of came into existence right before him (at least when Nightcrawler did it, there was a warning noise), and he said, "There's no need to be rude, mate." It was the same old Bob, in the same rock star leather pants and expertly mussed hair, but today his stupid t-shirt proclaimed "Cockshutt Old Peculiar" in bright white letters on a dark blue background. The smaller white lettering underneath "Brewed since Tuesday, 1997" indicated it was some kind of beer, but Scott really didn't want to know. He went out of his way to find disturbing shirts, didn't he?  
  
Bob crouched down, and sucked in a sharp breath. "Holy fuck - Shafan demons? How the hell did you survive that?"  
  
Scott stared at him, and up close his unnervingly blue eyes were even more startling; he could almost see miniscule sparks shooting between the cells that made up his pupils. "You know what they are?"  
  
"Yeah-I just saw your memories. Shit." He glanced down at the water splattered around them, and lightly touched one of the pools. "Good girl. Shafans are extremely hard to kill. You're lucky you're all still breathing, you know."  
  
"I know. Now will you help her already?"  
  
Bob trailed his fingers through one of the puddles, and then rubbed his fingertips together, as if trying to massage it into his skin. It was still too hot to touch the last time Scott tried, but he knew the rules didn't apply to Bob.  
  
When Bob met his gaze again, his gemstone eyes were full of pity. "I'm sorry, mate - "  
  
"No," Scott interrupted angrily. This asshole was not going to lie to him; he was not going to hang back on his lazy ass and do nothing.   
  
"- she's gone," Bob continued. "There's no consciousness here, no spark of life. She's dead."  
  
Someone - possibly Rogue - gasped on the floor above, but Scott barely heard it. All he could hear was the thundering of his heart and the roar of his blood. He hadn't been this angry since … well, hell, he didn't know. He'd never been this angry. "What good are you if you can't save her?" He roared, jumping to his feet. He seriously thought about punching Bob, even though he knew he probably never be successful.   
  
Bob must have known this, and yet none of it showed. He stood up slowly, throwing his arms wide. "In truth, mate? I'm no good at all. I wish I could bring back the dead, I really do, but I can't. I'm sorry - "  
  
"Save it!" He snapped, inexplicably feeling tears in his eyes, his throat starting to close up. Why, goddamn it? He wasn't going to cry, not for her. He didn't even like Cressida.  
  
So why did he feel so fucking bad?  
  
Bob snap his head around suddenly, glancing hard over his shoulder, and as Scott struggled to swallow his tears, Bob said, "Oh good - now we can get to the bottom of this."  
  
He wasn't going to ask - he wasn't sure he could speak without sobbing yet - when he saw a ball of fire flare into existence in mid-air, half way between where they were standing and the back wall. Another one? Scott braced to fire, but it was just a knee jerk adrenaline response, and pointless - Bob was here. And Bob had it before it even hit the ground.  
  
"Close," Bob said, but to what Scott had no idea. The ball of fire suddenly flared into humanoid form, and as soon as the burned holes of eyes appeared in its poor excuse for a head, it actually jumped back a foot. "Drai - " It squeaked, in a strangely high pitched voice.  
  
"Shut it," Bob said savagely, and it did - it had probably been an order. Bob stomped over to it, and Scott almost warned him not to get too close, but then he remembered that he didn't care. Also, it surely didn't matter. "What the fuck is this about?" Bob demanded of the creature, which seemed frozen in place. His doing? "Why are you trying to come back to this dimension?"  
  
If a flame creature could be said to flail, this one did. And Scott was slightly dismayed to find he got a small thrill from its obvious panic. " I - it - we sensed Camaxtli in this dimension," the Shafan said, leaning away from Bob. It was trying to back away from him, but its feet were frozen to the floor. " We came to aid him in his new dominion."  
  
"Camaxtli?" Scott repeated. That sounded oddly familiar …  
  
"Hey, wasn't that that weird god who helped us fight Fenrir?" Rogue added from above.   
  
"Camaxtli isn't here anymore," Bob snapped, although Scott felt he was addressing all of them, not just the fire demon. "He's dead. There will be no dominion here, and if I ever even hear about you comin' back to this plane, I will send you all to the realm of Niflheim and seal the door behind you. Is that clear?"  
  
"Yes, yes. But Drai'shajan, we thought you were with Camaxtli. We have no desire to anger yo-"  
  
"Too fucking late!" Bob then made a strange hand gesture, and reality itself seemed to tear open behind the Shafan. Before it or anyone else could react, it was sucked into the vortex, which instantly collapsed the moment it was gone.  
  
Vortex - that's what the Shafans had said originally, wasn't it?  
  
"They were an invasion force," Scott said, suddenly realizing it.  
  
"No. Technically, this first group was the scouts. They were supposed to make ready to feed the vortex, which would eventually allow them all to come back here." Bob turned back around, anger subsiding, but Scott was sure he saw his eyes were all glowing and blue before he blinked, and then they were normal, plain old eerie blue eyes again. But he knew what he had seen.  
  
"Why is Camaxtli dead?" Rogue asked, looking down on them from above. Bobby was next to her, while Brendan was looking down from farther away, his demon side only now beginning to subside.  
  
Bob shook his head. "It's a long story. But the shorthand version is Eris killed him."  
  
"Who the hell is Eris?" Rogue asked.   
  
"Goddess of chaos and discord," Bob replied blandly, as if describing a mundane profession. "In the god hierarchy, she's easily the strongest one. If you think of her as entropy, it might be easier for you to accept."  
  
"I thought Camaxtli was a her," Rogue replied skeptically.  
  
Scott just shook his head. Buying this god shit was bad enough - he didn't want to hear about how none of them had any genders, either. "Why, if Camaxtli is dead, did they think he-she, whatever - was still here?"  
  
Bob sighed heavily. "Cammy may have had an avatar here, and shunted his power to her. She was probably on this plane long enough to attract the attention of the Shafans, who are Cammy's loyal foot soldiers. But trust me, the avatar isn't here anymore. I think she's hiding out in a pocket dimension near Kumiho's old realm, but I haven't found her yet."  
  
"Okay, did somebody slip me some ecstasy, or does this completely not make any sense?" Brendan interjected. "Who the fuck are all these people you're talking about, and what the hell's an avatar, besides a picture on a posting board?"  
  
Bob rubbed his eyes, and looked strangely weary, which was saying something for him. "I'll get you back to the mansion, and explain this god/dimension shit to you as best I can."  
  
"You don't need to get us back to the mansion," Scott pointed out. "We brought the jet." And that just reminded him Cressida had been the co-pilot, and his anger drained away in a surge of despair. Another dead person on his watch. That was it - he couldn't do this anymore. Storm was just going to have to take over as team leader, because he couldn't stand it anymore. He could have gotten them all killed, and for what?  
  
Bob gave him a look with another big dollop of pity in it, and Scott desperately wanted to blast it off his face. "This isn't your fault, mate - "  
  
"Just get us the fuck out of here," he interrupted, no longer wanting to deal with Bob. The Professor could talk to him; Scott was really in no mood. He didn't know how Bob could claim to be a god and abide all the death and pain in the world. If he were him, he'd quit.  
  
It was probably a good thing Bob was such an asshole.  
  
27  
  
Logan was sure she was kidding, but she seemed very serious. "You want to become Human?"  
  
"I know, it's crazy, isn't it?" She admitted, snuggling her head deeper into her pillow. "One of the main tenets of Buddhism is that desire is the root of all suffering. I was cursed by someone with an existentialist streak; they damned me to always want what I couldn't have. I thought it was kind of silly at first, but soon I realized what a hideous thing it was. All the color seems to bleed out of life when you constantly want the unattainable. Everything else is unsatisfying; there's no joy in even the next best thing. You just muddle through, and keep hoping that something will be worth all of this. But is it ever really? No, not at all."  
  
He had an idea of what she was getting at - after, didn't he want what he couldn't have? Peace? People leaving him the fuck alone? Mariko? Jean? "But Humans are weak. And, as you pointed out, there's hardly a sense of brotherhood."  
  
"I know. But I want to taste real food again, and feel the sun on my face. You know, without dying."  
  
He hated to admit it, but he was sure he wasn't getting this. "But aren't there more advantages to bein' a vamp than bein' Human? You're immortal - well, except for the whole stake and sunlight thing - you're stronger, faster, have keener senses - "  
  
"Need blood to live," she interrupted.  
  
"I ain't sayin' that's not a major pain in the ass," he admitted, then wondered what the hell he was saying. "Humans age and die, they get sick, and honestly, they're kinda fragile. Believe me, I know. I mean, if you're so unhappy bein' a vamp, couldn't ya just stake yourself or something?"  
  
She finally sat up and turned to look at him, the blanket pooling around her waist. She seemed unaware that she wasn't wearing a shirt, but he wasn't complaining. "Do you know how old I was when I was turned?"  
  
He made himself look at her face, but he didn't take her eyes into account, as they looked quite old. "Eighteen?"  
  
"Seventeen. I was sheltered too, so I barely lived at all. I'd like to a little living - Human living - before I die."  
  
Logan scratched his head, and refused to admit he didn't understand. Except for the killing people and drinking their blood, vampires really did seem to have the better deal going, all in all. "But … if you get what you want, won't you want something else?"  
  
She shrugged her slender shoulders. She had a kanji tattooed on her left arm, the one meaning "sword" (no shock there), the ink as black as her hair, and as startling as a bruise against her pale alabaster skin. "Probably; that's the nature of my curse. I'm always disappointed when I finally do attain what I want, because I don't want it anymore."  
  
That sounded like some people he knew. "So you think the sword will … kill the demon and bring you back to life?"  
  
"If it works as advertised. After I take care of Fujimori and do that, the sword is yours, Logan - I have no use for it afterwards."  
  
He didn't know if he could trust that, but far be it from him to argue with an attractive topless woman. "Then what will you do? If these guys find out you're Human again -"  
  
"I'm a sitting duck, I know. I was planning to leave the country then, start a new life."  
  
"Where ya goin'?" Why did he ask that? Did he actually care?  
  
She smirked and glanced away, finally pulling the blanket over her shoulders like a kimono. Maybe she finally realized even she was abnormally chilly. "It sounds like complete bullshit if I say Canada now, doesn't it?"  
  
"Oh, come on, get serious."  
  
"I am serious! I've always liked Vancouver. And I prefer living on the Pacific."  
  
He shrugged. It could be a pretty nice place.  
  
"Your turn," she said. "Who is it you're resurrecting? Girlfriend?"  
  
He scowled down at her. "Why do you assume it's a girlfriend?"  
  
"Because you're a heterosexual man. It's always a woman - when you guys do crazy things, it's always 'cause of a woman."  
  
Logan rolled his eyes, and shifted slightly on the futon. "That's a stereotype." He didn't bother to add a wholly accurate one.  
  
She noticed he hadn't answered the question, and gave him a sly smile. "So I'm right?"  
  
"Friend," he snapped back, with more heat than he intended. But he was no longer sure if Jean was his friend, only because he wasn't sure she was Jean. "And wife. Maybe, if it's not too late."  
  
"Wife?" That seemed to surprise her; it seemed to surprise everyone. Did he really seem that bad? "What do you mean if it's not too late? Has she been dead a long time?"  
  
He was now sorry he said anything. He put his tea down and dry washed his face, hoping it covered it enough that she couldn't read his expression. "Since '81."  
  
"Shit. Umm, you know, with the decay rates -"  
  
"I don't want to talk about this," he interrupted, finding the courage to glare at her. He had never even been able to believe Mariko was in a coffin beneath that smooth patch of grass, because … because … he wasn't sure. Something inside him couldn't accept the reality, or at least it didn't want to. (Was he doing the same thing with Jean now?)  
  
Yasha had the decency to drop it. "Fine." She stood up, draping part of the blanket over her arm like it was a robe. "If it's as overcast as you say, we can get moving early. I'm taking a shower - want to join me?"  
  
He surprised himself by shaking his head. "Nah, I'm good."  
  
"No you're not," she replied. "You smell like Ressik blood. Now get your ass up, or I'm stealing all your clothes and throwing you in the harbor."  
  
He smirked at the thought. Did she really think she actually could? "You'd get a kick out of that, wouldn't you?"  
  
"Of course I would. Who wouldn't? Now come on."  
  
"You're a very bossy woman."  
  
"I like to think it's one of my charms."  
  
He shook his head, but stood up anyways. "Well, I am your love slave, aren't I?" He'd really be certifiable if he turned down an invitation like this. And even if he was, he could pretend to be sane, if only for a little while.  
  
****  
  
His guess about the weather had been absolutely correct.  
  
They had only started up out of the valley and into the higher elevations when frozen rain became sleet, and sleet became snow. And even though it was technically still day, the gunmetal gray clouds were so thick in the sky that Yasha stopped hiding in the back of the van and climbed into the passenger seat.  
  
The roads were not impassable, but the ice was starting sheet, and traffic started to drop off as the surface got slick. For that, he was glad.  
  
They drove on, past lakes as smooth as glass and valleys as green as jade, although snow began to slowly hide it all from view. Visibility was dropping rapidly, and he could have smacked himself when he realized, "She knows we're coming, doesn't she? She's trying to stop us."  
  
"Considering we usually don't have blizzards this time of year, I'm gonna say yes."  
  
"How does she know we're coming?" He asked, suddenly suspicious. If this was a set up, who set them up? That damn Raiju?  
  
"I told you there were ways of gaining her attention," Yasha explained, and pulled an amulet out of her pocket. It was a gold pendant on a leather cord, marked with symbols that seemed to have something to do with snow. "This is supposedly from Kura-Okami, the god of rain and snow. A calling card, if you will."  
  
"And you didn't bother to mention you had it?" He groused. He was almost getting used to her little lies, which were more sins of omission than anything else; she just didn't like to give away too much information. And he had to admit that he understood that, because he didn't like to do that either. Maybe the problem here was that they were too much alike. (What had Otasuki said? They were mirror reflections of each other? Goddamn squid.)  
  
"Well, I have now," she said, giving him a lame little smile. She seemed to be immune to his glare, but tucked the amulet back in her coat pocket.  
  
They probably only got another half mile before the snow started robbing their tires of any kind of traction. The wind picked up too, howling like an army of angry dead, and Yasha said, "She must be close - the amulet's starting to feel hot."  
  
Since she was the "Snow Queen", he had no idea why the pendant would get hot, but he figured it didn't matter. "How do we fight her?"  
  
"Oh, about that … we can't."  
  
"We can't?"  
  
"She is a god, of sorts. Unless your master's around, we don't have a chance in hell."  
  
"My master?" He snapped, tired of fighting the steering wheel - he was about to accidentally snap it off anyways. He let the van slide off towards the side of the road, and once they hit the snowy berm, killed the engine and pulled the emergency break. It slid for a couple more feet, then finally stopped. "What the fuck's that supposed to mean? I don't have a master."  
  
"Christ, all right, don't get so touchy about it. I just meant the god you avatar for."  
  
"I'm not a lap dog."  
  
"Fine, fine." Yasha popped open her door, and tossed the pendant out into the snow. It disappeared beneath the relentless rain of white flakes. "But since you're so experienced with gods, you wanna open the conversation?"  
  
He sighed, not at all surprised. He was afraid it would come to this. "What do you expect me to do? Say "Hi - we'd like the Life/Death sword - could we have it please?" "   
  
She gave him a completely deadpan look, and he admired her ability to keep a straight face. "Asking never hurt."  
  
Logan shook his head and got out of the van, the wind hitting him in the face like a frozen fist. He so hated gods and demons and all their shit. Couldn't not believing in them make them go away? It would have been wonderful if that theory ever panned out.  
  
He slogged through knee deep snow towards the dark spot where Yasha had thrown the pendant, wondering if Bob's name would help him at all. It was even odds that it would hurt tremendously.  
  
The winds started to howl even louder, and he realized a funnel of snow was starting to form several meters ahead of him; a winter tornado. It grew tall, towering twelve feet over his head, but stayed stationary, even as its rotation grew more rapid. Suddenly it seemed to plump up and grow still, and suddenly it was a person - an eighteen foot woman made of snow, with skeletal hands like the roots of dead trees, and a head shaped more like a fox than a human, with a plume of snowy hair like a lion's mane. Her eyes were boulders, and her mouth was the cleft in the side of the mountain. "Who summons the Snow Queen?" She asked, her voice like breaking ice.  
  
Logan bet a handshake was right out of the question. 


	13. Part 13

28  
  
  
  
Logan wondered what he could say to this thing that would make it friendly. Was there anything that could make it friendly? "Er, uh, hi," he said, and immediately felt like an ass.  
  
The snow beast loomed over him, looking like it might squash him any second. But it had overlooked a couple of details: while it had legs, it hadn't made any separate feet. Still, she was a big pile of snow - did she need any?  
  
"Why do you bother me, Human?" She snarled, sounding like the roar of an avalanche.   
  
"I seek the sword of life and death," he said, and felt even more like a moron. What the fuck was he, some loser in a sword and sorcery roleplaying game? Maybe an extra in a bad fantasy epic.   
  
It was hard to read a big face that was no more than a blanket of snow, and certainly the stones of her eyes were unreadable. After a long moment, she said, "So? That's a pity for you."  
  
"I intend to return it to the rightful owner." Well, eventually.  
  
"It's rightfully mine," she roared. "Are you accusing me of being a thief?"  
  
Oh great, he was making this worse. He had no choice here, did he? "No. Look … Bob wants it."  
  
She cocked her massive head, the snow creaking as if above to give way beneath a climber. "Who?"  
  
"The Drai'shajan? Powerful annoying guy? Bright blue eyes? Aussie?"  
  
"Oh, him." Logan couldn't tell if that was good or bad. "Why did he send you?"  
  
"I'm his avatar."  
  
"He didn't come for it himself?"  
  
"He was … busy. Family wedding."  
  
"He's wedding a family?" She repeated in disbelief, then shook her head, creating tiny cascades of snow from her head. "He's such an odd thing."  
  
Logan could hardly argue with that. "So can I have it?"  
  
She used one of her skeletal fingers to scratch her head, creating a huge gouge, and a minor avalanche. "Why does Bob want it? It's no good anymore."  
  
"What do you mean?" Maybe it was a lie.  
  
Her eyes narrowed, the boulders cracking under the weight of her eyelids. "He didn't tell you?"  
  
"I'm just an avatar."  
  
Her huge shoulders rolled like there was a tidal wave beneath the permafrost. "True. The curse on the sword was broken several years ago by a vengeful coven. It has none of its power left."  
  
Logan continued to hope that she was lying to him, but why would she? "Can I see it?"  
  
The shoulders undulated again, shedding snow and fragments of shrubs. He was up to his knees in powder now, and while the snow had stopped swirling around him, it was now drifting down lazily in fat flakes that slipped down the collar of his jacket and got the back of his neck wet. It was really annoying, but at least she wasn't trying to blow him off his feet anymore. "Be my guest. But that sword has a lot more value in speculation than reality."  
  
The wind picked up once more, but it was just a tiny swirl of snow (snow devil?) that left, at his feet, the sword he had seen only in sketches.   
  
It was the same subtly curved katana, the dragon head with the ruby eyes on the haft, the outline of the serpentine dragon still visible on the sharp blade, in spite of what Tagawa had said. He picked it up by its leather wrapped handle, and waited to feel something besides it weight … yet nothing happened. He was sure he'd feel a mystical tingle or something, but …  
  
"It really is just a sword now, isn't it?" He said, unbelievably disappointed. But with his luck, why was he surprised?   
  
"Didn't I tell you?"  
  
He continued to test the weight in his hand, hoping that the sword would come to life or react to the amulet or something, but it was just another sword. A finely crafty and well maintained sword, but no more than that. "So why did you continue to hide it away if it's completely powerless?"  
  
She made a noise that sounded like a tree snapping under the weight of too much snow. Logan figured out it was a scoff. "Because I was entrusted with it, Human. No one ever said, "Well, if it becomes a normal sword, chuck it in the garbage." Besides, you creatures would still fight over it - you fight over everything."  
  
He wanted to bring up the "war" between Kumiho and everyone else (well, hiding behind Bob), but decided he'd been lucky to get this far. Did he really want to push his luck with a big ass snow god? "Can I take it?"  
  
"If Bob wants the toothpick, he can have it. But I still don't see why."  
  
"Maybe it's a wedding present," he suggested, following up on his previous lie. It had seemed funny at the time, but now it was just kind of pathetic.  
  
She made a "hmm" sort of noise, and the wind gusted briefly, long enough for her to fragment into a million different flakes of snow.   
  
He trudged back to the truck, trying his best to avoid stepping in drifts of her, as the snow stopped falling. The wind was still brisk, though, enough that he could feel his cheeks warming from the heat of healing windburn.   
  
As he got in, Yasha was slumped in the passenger seat, looking glum. "I heard."  
  
"All of this for nothing," he said, staring at the sword. It was still a nice sword, it had just lost some of its luster.  
  
"Can I see it?"  
  
He handed it to her, and after giving it a good once over, she cut her palm by running it along the edge. He wondered what the hell she was doing, but kept his mouth shut, figuring it didn't really matter anyways.  
  
She looked at her hand, watched the blood crawl down her arm, and said, "Nope, nothing. She was telling the truth."  
  
"I thought she was."  
  
She sighed heavily. "So, I guess I'm a vampire for good."  
  
He wondered briefly if Bob could help her. But no, how could he? He might be able to kill the demon, but her body would still be dead. Bob always claimed he couldn't bring back the dead (Logan always got a sense that was shit, but for some reason it was a personal line Bob refused to cross). "I dunno. Maybe there's some way around it."  
  
"Maybe." She didn't sound convinced.  
  
"Still want to kill Fujimori?"  
  
She sat up straighter in her seat. "Hell yeah."  
  
"Well, at least we can do that much," he told her, starting the van.  
  
Maybe it wouldn't feel like a complete failure if they were able to do this one thing.  
  
28  
  
She didn't know where Fujimori was hiding out, but she knew where he very well might be once dusk settled in - an illegal gambling club he owned, named Kanegura (literally, "Treasure House").   
  
He went inside to check things out, and was greeted by a red and gold interior, reminiscent of a tacky soapland, with gambling tables so close together - and so crowded - there was barely room to move between them. The scantily clad waitresses were mostly demon (although the vampire ones looked terribly Human), although he spotted a Stansin that looked a lot like Helga, only with longer hair, streaked with gold paint. She headed his way, and he was obscurely glad, as he was accustomed to Stansins (or so he thought, at any rate). They were randy, but usually honest.   
  
"Heya, gaijin," she said, chewing gum noisily. "Don't know if you know, but Humans take their own risks coming in here - the management refuses responsibility for any "accidents"."  
  
He nodded. "Yeah, I get that. But I'm here to see Mr. Fujimori."  
  
She cocked her head and studied him suspiciously. She looked barely legal, but how did you tell with demons? "I don't believe he has any appointments."  
  
"I think he'll want to talk to me anyways."  
  
"Oh yeah? And why's that?"  
  
"I know where Raifu-Kisei is - and Lady Blood. And I'm willing to sell them both, if the price is right."  
  
Her eyes narrowed as she scrutinized him, tail flicking impatiently behind her, and he wondered if she now disliked him for being such a traitorous scumbag. "Wait here - I'll see if he's in." She sashayed through the crowd, towards the back rooms, which were only barely hidden by a rice paper screen.   
  
Logan stood where he was, waiting patiently, and subtly eyeing the crowd. The muscle was easy to pick out, even the ones who were "incognito" - he could smell gun oil, bad aftershave (why did rent-a-cops always prefer bad cologne?), and saw bulges that revealed unfortunate holster choices (or oddly placed genitalia - but he really didn't want to think about that).   
  
The muscle started to circulate in the crowd closer to him - news must have gotten out - but he remained where he was, trying to seem bored and disinterested with the salary men - Human and demon alike - losing their checks to crooked blackjack and roulette games.  
  
He was kept waiting for a long time, but he wasn't surprised. It was a psych test - if he was a liar, or up to something, he should start getting increasingly nervous and anxious, sure he had been discovered. Suited muscle started edging closer to him, another part of the test. But Logan knew it too well, expected it, and didn't fall for it. He was a bit tired of standing around like a doorman, though.  
  
Finally, the Stansin reappeared, a hard and wary look on her green face. "Okay, you can have five minutes."  
  
"Thanks, that's all I need," he said, and followed her back behind the screen. A huge Ressik fell into step behind him, and Logan couldn't help but smirk. Was he going to pull his gun now, or wait until they were in Fujimori's "office"?  
  
The Stansin opened the bland white door, but didn't enter, simply stood off to one side as he went in, followed by his Ressik shadow.  
  
Logan almost walked into a drawn gun.  
  
Actually, he was surrounded by them. There were five bodyguards in the office, all with drawn weapons dead centered on his head, and since it was such a tiny cubicle, he was impressed they could all squeeze in here. It was wall to wall muscle, but it didn't intimidate him like it was meant to - all it did was show him that these guys had no room to move if it went to fisticuffs.  
  
And it was going to fisticuffs. They just didn't know it yet.   
  
As far as the office of some would be gangster kingpin went, it was pretty lame. Just a cubicle style office, white with highlights of blue, and Logan wondered if this was what they meant by the banality of evil.  
  
"How stupid do you think I am, Human?" The man who must have been Fujimori asked. "I know who you are. And whatever lame ass plan you and Lady Blood have planned, I assure you it won't work. The outer perimeter security is hunting her right now."  
  
Logan looked past the barrel in his face, and scrutinized the man with a clinical eye. "You're it?" He said, scoffing in disdain. He was just a Japanese guy in a plush desk chair behind a cheap Ikea sort of desk, more practical than built for long use. But while he looked like a Yakuza with his slicked back hair and sharp silver suit, his almond shaped eyes were a bright, unnatural blue - Belial. Fujimori was a fucking Belial. How typical.  
  
Fujimori scowled. "What's that supposed to mean? "I'm it"? Did she say I was a Berserker or something?"  
  
"No. I just figured - bein' reasonably competent for a wannabe gangster, you'd be something other than a pissant, fuck up Belial." One of the Ressiks coughed to cover a laugh.  
  
Fujimori gave him an acrid look that could have stripped flesh off his bones. "You know nothing about me or my kind, Human."  
  
"Not true. See, I know this Belial with a big, crazy ass family, almost as nutty as him. They lie like rugs, are as snarky as hell, and generally have more money than sense. But they also have a lot of power - I mean, "We can end the world" kinda power. The weirdest thing about them is they don't abuse the power; not really. It's not very Human, and it's not very Belial of 'em, which is how I know they aren't really what they claim to be. And you know why? 'Cause Humans and true Belials are very much alike. And I know that little pricks like you - Human or not - with precious little power, like to pretend they have a lot and throw it around. It's a danger of our mutual breed. Pity."  
  
Fujimori flushed a color of blue akin to toilet water. "Are you comparing me to a Human?"  
  
Oh, was that the sore spot, was it? It must have been hard for a demon who didn't look much like one trying to control all these other demons. "If the Prada suit fits, bub."  
  
More coughing from the Ressik in the corner. He was probably going to lose his jobs-assuming he lived. A big if.   
  
Fujimori struggled to control his rage, compress it into something cold and hard behind his eyes. "And you claim I'm full of shit?"  
  
Logan shrugged. "Whatever. You know, if you really do know who I am, ya know bullets won't do you any good."  
  
"These are special rounds, my ugly mutant friend. They explode on impact. So even if you can take a lot of damage - and you do seem capable of that - you'll definitely be slowed down. Are you good with pain?"  
  
"Used to it."  
  
"Being used to something doesn't mean you're good with it."  
  
"Whatever. Are you guys gonna shoot me or what? I have an early flight out."  
  
Fujimori was apparently trying to glare him to death, but as far as Logan knew, that never worked. "What is Lady Blood planning? Were you supposed to come here and kill me? Has she sunk to a new level of lameness?"  
  
He wondered if enough time had passed, and figured it had. "Naw. This was my idea actually. I figured you being such a cocky piece of shit, you'd put most of your security on me as soon as I showed my face. That would give her a chance to get into position."  
  
"And what position would that be?"  
  
"It's over your head." He thought he heard a little scuttling on the roof, as quite as mouse feet. Yeah, right on time.  
  
"Pardon me? Are you compounding your idiocy by suggesting I'm the moron, gene trash?"  
  
"No, asshole, I'm bein' literal." He pointed up towards the ceiling, a gesture that made several fingers tense on the trigger. "Over your fuckin' head."  
  
It was then that Yasha set off the shaped charges, and the ceiling exploded, raining debris down on all of them.  
  
The shock of it made the Ressiks start shooting, but Logan had already popped his claws and taken the gun hands off two of them, kicking a third in the stomach and sending him reeling back into the largest chunk of ceiling panel, which cracked over his big, lizardy head like a concrete beam.   
  
Yasha landed feet first on the desk, and Fujimori shot out of his seat, bringing up what looked like a small aerosol can, but Logan snatched it out of his hand before he could use it. He'd made short work of the security - a few slashes and they were done - and amazingly he didn't get shot. He did get some nasty knocks from the falling bits of ceiling, though; one chunk had opened up his scalp and dribbled blood in his eye before it healed up.   
  
Fujimori moved to take the can back, but when he saw his bloody claws, he changed his mind.   
  
"Mace on a vampire?" Logan asked incredulously. "And you called me stupid? What is it, garlic flavored?"  
  
"It's probably holy water," Yasha told him, bringing up Life/Death and putting the tip an inch away from Fujimori's startled face. "Isn't it?"  
  
Outside the office, Logan could still hear faint screaming and sounds of panicked fleeing. They were probably afraid the entire building was under attack.  
  
Yasha had sketched out the probable dimensions of his office, and they had decided on the most economical way of blowing a hole in the roof. The point hadn't been to destroy the office, or even to scare away the rest of the security (although that was a nice side benefit); the point had been to give Yasha a way in.  
  
Fujimori's eyes widened as he realized what the sword in his face actually was. "Is - is that Raifu-Kisei?"  
  
"Yes," she agreed. "I thought you'd like to see it before I rammed it through your skull."  
  
Fujimori was too enraptured by the appearance of the sword - his Holy Grail - to pay any attention to the death threat. "You freed Otasuki, and he told you where it was."  
  
"You figured that out all by yourself?" Logan replied sarcastically, tossing the can of vamp-be-gone away.  
  
But Fujimori ignored him too. He only had eyes for the sword. "How did you free him?"  
  
"God blood." Yasha said it casually, like you could pick it up in a 7-11, between the Hostess display and the Slurpee machine.  
  
"Where the hell did you get god blood?"  
  
"Found an avatar."  
  
"I thought you were just gonna kill him," Logan interjected, bored already.  
  
Fujimori paled, turning a robin's egg blue. "You can't do that."  
  
"Oh really?" Yasha replied, clearly amused. "And why not?"  
  
Fujimori's face set like stone. "I own this town, bitch. Even the Yakuza is afraid of me, and for damn good reason. By not accepting the generosity of the Vantha, you have condemned yourself to the same doom as the Human garbage. We are making this world our own, and you won't have any part in it. Kill me, and you'll never live to see the next sundown. You'll die along with the rest of the Human scum." Fujimori turned his frigid blue eyes on Logan. "Are you so whipped you'll let her slaughter me for no reason?"  
  
He couldn't help but chuckle. He loved the brazen gall of Belials (except when it annoyed the shit out of him). "No reason? There was this guy named Leyoshi that you had whacked, remember? And those same pricks impaled me to a wall. That's a good fucking reason."  
  
That just earned him a disdainful sneer. "You shouldn't have gotten in the way, mutant. You're gonna die no matter what, shithead. Stick with her and it'll be sooner." His icy eyes scudded back to Yasha. "Tell me what it's like to be hunted, Blood. By the entire demon populace of Tokyo, by the Vantha, by the demons of the whole fucking world. 'Cause that's what's gonna happen when word gets out you killed me."  
  
"Why don't I tell you?" Logan said, and punched his claws straight through Fujimori's chest.  
  
The Belial barely had time to stare at him with wide and startled eyes before he died. Logan retracted his claws, and the brand new corpse crumpled to the floor in an untidy heap.  
  
After a thick moment of silence, Yasha asked, "Why did you do that?" She sounded more stunned than angry.  
  
"If Reiko knew who I was, others will too. And they'll know you're not the one who killed him. Besides, he wouldn't shut the fuck up."  
  
The look she gave him was so intensely curious, he was almost insulted. "You know what this means, don't you? The demons will be coming for you. I could take the heat, you know."  
  
"Just 'cause you can doesn't mean you should." He belatedly winced, aware he just quoted something Bob - and possibly Jean - had thrown at him in the past.   
  
"This isn't a macho thing with you, is it? You're not worried at all."  
  
He sighed in frustration, and told her, "Look, you know what? You're right - I'm old. I shudder to think how old I am. People have devoted their entire to killin' me, and they have tried in every way you can imagine. I've even been strapped down to tables and had people vivisect me like a frog in high school biology class, conscious while they played around with my organs, but I'm still here, aren't I? If those fucks have what it takes to put me down, then I deserve to be dead."  
  
She jumped off the desk, but never looked away from his eyes. "What a curious man you are."  
  
He didn't know how to take that, so he decided to change the subject. "What the hell is the Vantha anyways?"  
  
It was her turn to shrug. "I'm not really sure. From the way he talked about it, it sounded like some kind of demon mafia."  
  
Beyond the closed door, shuffling noises abounded, as some of t he security team that hadn't died was finally coming back to see if they were still employed. He gestured to the massive hole where the ceiling used to be, and asked, "Should we fight 'em, or just get out of here?"  
  
"Do we have anything better to do?"  
  
"Maybe." It was funny how this idea just occurred to him fully formed, and felt perversely right, even though he knew it couldn't be that simple. Was anything? But it was a shot. Maybe there was a way to salvage this situation: he couldn't bring Mariko back, and he couldn't save Jean, but maybe he could help Yasha if no one else.  
  
"What?"  
  
"Let's get back to your place. I'll tell you there."  
  
She quirked an eyebrow at him, as the scuffling got closer outside. "More sex? I like you, but this is getting ridiculous."  
  
He rolled his eyes, and wondered if it was worth helping a sarcastic vampire. "What is it with smart ass cracks and the undead?"  
  
"When you're dead yet still alive, everything seems kinda ironic."  
  
When she put it that way, he supposed she had a point.  
  
29  
  
Logan was half expecting some kind of demon ninja hit squad to be waiting for them back at Yasha's place, but no, there was no way they were that organized. They wouldn't show until … well, at least by noon. Still, it was almost disappointing to not have more Ressiks and Berserkers, or men wearing Hai Karate, to kill. Well, not now at any rate.  
  
Once inside, she went to her lighting candles ritual, and he tossed the ornamental but perfectly useless sword on the futon. He told her of his plan before he regained his senses. "So the reason I don't stay injured for long is 'cause of my healing factor, my mutant "gift"." There was just no way to hide the sarcasm.  
  
"I guessed that," she responded coolly. "Why are you telling me this?"  
  
This was his proof he was insane, but he wasn't sure he cared anymore. "The regenerative factor is in my blood, Yasha. A little of it once … cured this vamp I know of a drug that was makin' him nuts. My immunity transferred to him."  
  
She paused to look at him, the reflections of the flames dancing in her dark eyes. "You were bitten by a vampire?"  
  
"That's not the point."  
  
"What is the point?"  
  
"I'm sayin' … wanna be Human again? Bite me. Maybe enough of my blood could "heal" you, kill the demon and bring you back."  
  
"You're insane." Not an accusation, just a statement of fact.  
  
"Probably. But it might work."  
  
"How much is enough blood, exactly?" She was trying to keep her voice and expression neutral, but as she came closer, he could see the hunger shining in her eyes. Yeah, she had wanted his blood all along, just as he suspected.  
  
"I don't know. You'll have to tell me."  
  
Now her eyebrows raised in utter disbelief. "What? You're leaving a judgment of how much blood is enough to a vampire?"  
  
He rolled his shoulders in a very half-hearted shrug. It was weird how freeing this decision felt. Just cast his lot, and see what happened - whatever did, it was completely out of his hands, but this time he had made the decision that led to it. He was no longer at the mercy of blind circumstances; he was calling the final shot. "You'd be hard pressed to kill me, darlin'."  
  
She shook her head, but her eyes never broke away from his. "You really do want to die, don't you?"  
  
He scowled violently at her. "I'm offering you a chance to get your humanity back, Mei Li." Just as he thought, the use of her real, long forgotten name seemed to have impact. "Do ya really just wanna stand there and insult me?"  
  
"You don't know what you're asking, Logan. You don't even know that it will work."  
  
"And you don't know that it won't. Is that really what's bothering you?"  
  
She was close enough to reach out and touch, but once again her expression was inscrutable. She just stared at him until her gaze was as uncomfortable as staring into the sun. "Why?" She finally asked, her voice oddly quiet.  
  
"Because I think you deserve a chance to live again." 'And because this can't have been all for nothing,' he thought, but didn't say.  
  
Her look became oddly sorrowful. "You are the strangest man I've ever met."  
  
"You ever gonna stop insulting me?"  
  
"It wasn't an insult." She paused briefly, and admitted, "I want your blood, but I don't want to kill you."  
  
"You won't."  
  
"You don't know that. I'm still a demon - I don't know that I can stop myself."  
  
"I'll take my chances." He popped a claw, making her jump, but he pressed the tip against the side of his own throat. "Do you do the honors, or do I?"  
  
She shook her head once more, torn somewhere between disgust and blood lust. "You needed more help than the sword ever could have given you."  
  
"Yeah, I know." He pressed the tip gently into his own skin, drawing up a bead of blood that he could feel trickling down his throat. He could see the war behind her eyes - the oddly Human side of her that wanted to turn away, and the demon half that didn't want to see a precious drop of blood wasted - as she visually tracked the blood trail until it soaked into the collar of his shirt. He didn't think she'd be able to hold out much longer.  
  
She didn't. She vamped out at a frightening speed and all but lunged for him, grabbing his arms with surprising strength and sinking her fangs into his throat. It was a pinprick pain, much less than the pain of popping his claws, and withdrew his single claw, not even trying to fight her off. If he wanted to, he could have dusted her in an instant - but he didn't want to do that.  
  
The blood seemed to rush out of him as fast or even faster than the time he'd had his throat cut, and she let out an almost orgasmic moan as she greedily gulped it down. He could feel it leaving him, but there was an oddly sexual component to it, as his endorphins kicked in to fight the pain, and his adrenaline surged, to try and spur him into solving the problem, while his healing factor burned, trying to close a wound that wouldn't quite shut. A curious surge of pleasure in response to a fatal pain.  
  
He fell backwards, onto the tatami, but he had no memory of it. He felt like he was still falling, through the floor, through the sea, through the earth, and into something he couldn't imagine. He could barely feel her on top of him, still draining him dry; she could have been a wraith, a cool breeze in the dead of night.  
  
Logan closed his eyes, and saw the pulsing of red behind his eyelids, as if his brain was trying to send out a final red alert. But he ignored it and passively let the cold embrace him, let it carry him away. And there was a strange relief that maybe this was finally over, although even then, Logan couldn't admit to himself that he was thinking about his life.  
  
***  
  
There was a huge bang, a slam of metal against metal, and Logan jerked up instantly to a sitting position, all senses alert, his body braced for a fight.  
  
Except instant disorientation threw him off his game. He was sitting in a room of white and stainless steel, that smelled of disinfectants and electrostatic charge, and he realized he was back in Jean's lab under the mansion - and the back wall was on fire.  
  
No, not exactly - it was made of fire. Fire that had no smell. And there was Jean standing in front of it, arms crossed over her chest, hip cocked, her lips curved down in an aggressively disapproving frown. In her rage, the fire had completely consumed her eyes. "What the fuck do you think you're doing, Logan?"  
  
She must have been angry if she dropped the f-bomb on him. It took him a moment to remember what was going on in the real world. "I'm helping a friend." It was odd, but he could feel the ghost of fangs in his neck. He glanced down to find himself shirtless and barefoot, clad only in loose black pants, just like he was when he first came to in her lab. He thought about making another joke about her liking his shirt off, but from the way the red flames were bleeding out of her eyes, he knew this was not the time.  
  
"No you are not," she raged, and a hint of something gravelly and inhuman crept in beneath her voice. "She is no friend - you barely know her. You are trying to commit suicide!"  
  
Power was coming off her in waves like heat, and he'd been exposed to it enough to know it was god like power, something that could cut and burn and destroy and kill without an ounce of effort. And in spite of that, he didn't bother to suppress the anger that suddenly bloomed inside his chest. "What the fuck are you, Jeannie - my mother? Butt the fuck out!"  
  
"And let you die?"  
  
He scoffed and jumped off the table, feet slapping the metal floor, and unconsciously he had been expecting it be hot (from the flames - but of course it was cold). "Die? I wish I could, but ya know damn well that ain't happening."  
  
"No I don't," she replied, seemingly gaining control of her voice. "You can't lose all your blood and survive, Logan."  
  
"I ain't losin' all of it."  
  
"Oh really? You expect a vampire to have self-control?"  
  
It was just then, staring at her and her burning eyes, that he felt it all go out of him. Again, it was like a welcome release, a letting go of unnecessary baggage. "I don't care," he admitted, feeling strangely enervated. "I'm tired, Jean, don't you get that? I'm so fucking tired of all this madness. I don't want to do this anymore."  
  
As her anger started to fade, the flames in her eyes started to subside, retreat to their normal prison within her pupils. And maybe it was due to the blood loss in the real world, but he felt so weak he sat down cross legged on the floor, hanging his head in his hands. "Let go," he said, trying not to make it a plea. "Jeannie, let me go."  
  
He didn't even hear her approach. She was imply there, running one of her hot hands through his hair. "No," she said simply. And it sounded as ominous as it felt.  
  
He didn't want to say it- he detested emotional blackmail - but he had to know if there was anything left of Jean in there. "If you ever loved me at all, you would do this for me."  
  
"It's because I love you that I can't let you throw your life away," she claimed, her hand falling to the back of his neck. He could feel heat and power leeching into him, and it felt oddly familiar. Something about heat and power …  
  
… his mind suddenly flashed on a memory, of the time he got his throat cut in Santo Marco by the anti-Jean. He dreamed he was in a tower, and an arm of flame reached out of a pond and grabbed him by the throat, its touch sending heat throughout his body …  
  
Logan looked up at her with a gasp of shock. "That was you." It seemed obvious now, but he hadn't even remembered it until now. And as he felt her power surging through his veins, he suddenly realized something else. "Are you trying to transform me too?" 


	14. Part 14

"What?" She had the decency to look shocked, and her voice lowered to the soft Jean voice he knew. He also knew he dared not trust it. "No, of course not. Why would I do that?"  
  
He snorted a laugh through his nose. "A god doesn't need a reason to do anything. I've learned that the hard way."  
  
"I'm not a god."  
  
"Oh no? The power you're shedding ain't normal, honey."  
  
She was on her knees in front of him, more or less at his eye level, but the effect was still disturbing. Even pulling back the fire in her eyes didn't subdue their eerie power. "I haven't exactly learned how to completely control it yet. There wasn't an instruction manual."  
  
"Camaxtli ain't helpin' you?"  
  
She grimaced, and it was the most Human expression he'd seen on her face for a very long time. "He's not here anymore."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
Gazing at her steadily, his heart skipped a beat. She almost looked like the Jean he remembered, the Jean he used to know. "I mean he's dead, Logan."  
  
"Yeah I know - Eris killed him. That's what allowed him to jump into you."  
  
She shook her head. "No, you misunderstand me. The "jump" - as you said - must have been incomplete, because while he tried to control me, he wasn't strong enough."  
  
He didn't know which was worse - that he was misunderstanding her, or he was getting her completely. "What are you telling me?"  
  
She gave him a sly, mischievous smile that skirted the edge of coldness. Her eyes glittered like stars. "No one ever told him never to get into a mind war with a telepath."  
  
She honestly believed she killed Camaxtli? "He was a god."  
  
"More like half a god at the end," she said, clearly reveling in her triumph. "And a weakened half at that. Eris is brutal, apparently."  
  
"Don't ever trust a god," he implored, wondering if any lingering bit of Camaxtli wouldn't allow her to listen. "They don't even stay dead when they're supposed to."  
  
Her expression dripped with sadly amused patronization. He could almost hear the "silly mortal" that surely must have accompanied that look. "Don't worry, Logan - he's gone. Trust me."  
  
He sincerely wished he could. "If that's true, why are you avoiding Bob?"  
  
"Because I'm not sure of the boundaries of my powers, or how much I can control them. And frankly, I don't want him to take them away. Do you know how much good I could do with these powers?"  
  
"Do you know how much damage you could do? Have you forgotten that Camaxtli was a war god? He fed off the violent deaths of other beings. He was a world class prick, and - maybe I'm wrong - but if what I picked up from Bob is right, he had the power of life and death on a wide scale: one sneeze, and an entire universe could collapse in on itself."  
  
She raised an eyebrow at him, lips compressing into a tight line. "Do you think I can't handle it?"  
  
He stared at her in utter disbelief. "That isn't the fucking point! Should you handle it? You could blow up a fucking planet if you're not careful! Doesn't that bother you?"  
  
"Creation and destruction are two different sides of the same coin. As long as I'm careful, there's no chance that will happen."  
  
Was she drunk on power? Could she be? That was disillusioning; he always thought Jean was better than that. "So what exactly are you doin' to me?"  
  
That innocent look could have won her an Oscar. "I'm not doing anything to you."  
  
"Don't bullshit me in my own mind! You've only dumped a metric ton of crap in my head, and I don't know what half of it is! And you keep skulkin' around, you don't contact the others, and you've fucking lied to me, Jean! Give me some truth for once."  
  
Her eyes narrowed, brows dropping low, and the flames flared in her eyes once more, but more in annoyance than true anger. "I have been telling you the truth, Logan. Camaxtli is gone, and I haven't quite mastered my powers yet, but I'm learning. And I only contact you because I know I can't kill you."  
  
"Are you tryin' hard enough, darlin'?"  
  
She scowled at him, not a pretty sight one someone with flaming eyes. "What I want to know is why you can't be honest with yourself."  
  
He scoffed. "What kinda new age bullshit is that? About what?"  
  
"About your death wish."  
  
"I don't have a death wish," he snapped back bitterly, but it sounded defensive and false even to him. It was funny how you could be so deep in a hole, not only could you not see out, but you couldn't even see where the hell you were. The dark simply became home, and you lost all memory of ever having been anywhere - the light was something that existed for other people. But he was so accustomed to it … if he didn't have this, what did he have?  
  
With a heavy sigh, he admitted, "Fine, do ya want me to say it? I'd rather be dead, yeah. It'd make things a hell of a lot easier."  
  
"On who? I never pegged you for a coward. Many other things, but never that."  
  
"Well, you were wrong. I'm the biggest coward in the world - I even run away from my own memories. But I keep a kick ass front up, don't I?" Why was he saying these things? It was like he couldn't not say them. Jean's telepathy, bleeding into him? Making him say things whether he wanted to or not? Or perhaps the correct term was think things, as this was some kind of mindscape, and they only pretended to speak.  
  
He was going to let her have a good dose of indignant rage, but then she leaned her forehead against his, her overly warm hand cupping the back of his neck, and the anger seemed to die in the hollow of his chest. "You want to know what I'm trying to do to you?" She said, her "voice" a soft whisper. "I'm trying to heal you."  
  
"I can heal on my own, thanks. It's the one thing I can do well."  
  
"Not the physical; I'm trying to heal what cannot be healed."  
  
"What the fuck does that mean?" But even as he said that, he knew exactly what she meant - the psyche, the mind. Everything that wasn't physical, and yet still bore deep scars. And the very idea embarrassed the hell out of him, and brought back that flare of anger. It was his shit, and it was up to him to deal with it or not.   
  
He closed his eyes, trying not to think of the proximity of her lips to his, especially since he wasn't completely convinced that Camaxtli was gone; he was probably playing her, like he played Bob, and everyone else. The fucker was crafty, but then again, extremely bloody Incan god - he probably had the "fucking people over" thing down pat. "Maybe Marc was right," he finally said. "I'm a clinical depressive."  
  
"I keep telling you, post trau - "  
  
"Stop telling me," he interrupted, really not wanting to hear it. "So you said you could make me forget?"  
  
"I think so. But the more I think about it, the more I think we should find another way."  
  
"What? And what's so wrong with making me forget anyways?"  
  
"You've already forgotten so much."  
  
"What's a little more?"  
  
Just from the pause, he knew she didn't find that funny. "And as horrible as it is, those memories have helped you."  
  
"How?" But he supposed - as much as he hated to admit it - he could see what she was getting at. "Well, I can scare off telepaths."  
  
"More than that. You have an insight into the people who did this to you. A horrible insight, but still … somewhere in those memories is the key to shutting them down for good."  
  
That was confusing as well as unsettling. "Why do you say that?"  
  
"You cling to those memories for a reason, Logan. Maybe you can't remember why right now, but at some point you will."  
  
That had never occurred to him. He thought he remembered what happened to him because they had never "wiped" it, and his mind had a sadistic streak. It was also his "birth", wasn't it? But maybe she was right - maybe there was a reason for it that eluded him. At least for now.  
  
"I need you to do something for me," she said, smoothing her hands through his hair.  
  
He wished he was surprised. "That's why I have to live, huh?"  
  
"Don't be so cynical. You have to live because I don't want you to die. And I think, really, you don't want to either."  
  
"Oh really?"  
  
"You just want peace, Logan. And who can blame you for that?"  
  
He was ready to make a snarky comment about peace, particularly about the general lack of it and its special futility for him, when she kissed him.   
  
He knew then, without a doubt, he was being manipulated. But she tasted just like he remembered, smelled the same, and he still wanted her. He missed her - the old Jean, the one before this, but he knew that was as pointless as wanting Mariko back. Neither was ever going to happen.  
  
The heat bleeding through her skin was enough to burn, and he could still feel it seeping into him, tendrils of psychic fire slipping through his cells like phantom organisms. He was sure she - or whatever - wasn't being completely honest with him, and he knew the more he let her manipulate him, the less he would care, and yet, he wasn't sure why he should go out of his way to stop her. There were so many pitfalls with desire.  
  
The Buddhists were absolutely right. It was the source of all suffering, or at least the kind that seemed to linger.  
  
He pulled away from her (how he had no idea), and his lips felt oddly dry, as if she had very nearly burned them. "Say you do find a way to heal me," he said, aware he might not like the answer. "What do you plan to do to me then?"  
  
He watched the lights in her eyes, the flicker of distant fires, and he wondered where the humanity had gone.  
  
Logan woke up, feeling as insubstantial as a dried leaf and as cold as marble, but hey, he was still alive. He knew it.  
  
He watched the shadows of the candle flames flicker across the ceiling, and was aware that Yasha had thrown a blanket on him (it smelled musty), and that she was no longer here. He sat up, but it triggered a head rush that almost made him pass out. He rested his head on his knees until it passed, and he felt steady enough to move.  
  
He made himself move slowly, as if he could really feel his adamantium (and in his weakened state, he did), and followed a familiar scent to the next room. Even though there was just the one, and it wasn't very big, it took him a moment to find her.   
  
She was just a lump beneath a blanket in the far corner, away from the shower, and he approached her quietly, trying to judge if she was breathing or not. It was raining again, pattering against the roof and hidden windows, a soft noise like a thousand ghosts impatiently tapping their fingers.  
  
He was within six feet of her when she said suddenly, "I stopped, you know." She rolled over onto her back and looked up at him. "But then again, you're alive, so you probably guessed that." She looked flushed, her skin a robust peach like hue, and for a moment he thought she was alive. But that's just how vampires looked after they fed - nearly living.  
  
Logan crouched down, mainly because he had to, and knew then, in spite of the smell of his blood on her, she still smelled like a vampire. "Why?"  
  
"Why what? Why stop?" She shrugged half heartedly. "I never want what I can get, Logan. Although maybe you broke my curse."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"I really wanted your blood. I mean, really." Her eyes seem to shine with greed, like just thinking about it made her hungry. "I thought it would taste good just from the way it smelled, but it was better than I ever imagined. We could probably sell it on vials in the street for two hundred a pop - I mean, what a rush. It's better than slayer blood, and I didn't think that was possible."  
  
He supposed it was a compliment, but what did you say when someone said your blood tasted good? "Thanks" was just too weird.  
  
She sensed his discomfort, and grinned up at him, her teeth as bright as her eyes. "I can't tell you how good I feel right now. I feel like I'm actually generating body heat, and I'm all tingly. I bet I could take out a tank with my bare hands." She gave him a questioning glance before asking, "You're not up for sex right now, are you?"  
  
He fixed her with the most disbelieving look he could muster without passing out. "I just lost half my blood volume - whadda ya think?"  
  
She gave him a pouty little frown, like he was overreacting. "I was just asking."  
  
"Okay, so I got great blood - but you still stopped."  
  
"I told you - I didn't want to kill you. I eventually came back to my senses. Although, if you were a normal Human, you would have died of shock … I'm pretty sure I took more than half."  
  
"Why are you in here?"  
  
"My willpower has its limits."  
  
He could understand that. He also found himself in the curious position of being glad she didn't kill him, and yet sorry she didn't go through with it. "That could have been your best shot at humanity, ya know."  
  
"I know. But I'm not sure there's enough people like you to make it worth it."  
  
He looked down at her, deeply puzzled, not sure what she meant by that. But she held up one corner of the blanket, and said, "Come on - get in."  
  
"Ya want seconds already?"  
  
She gave him a dirty look that was the equivalent of a middle finger, but she didn't give him the visual "fuck off" look for long. "No, it just looks like you're about to pass out."  
  
"And whose fault is that?"  
  
"Yours, actually - you all but demanded I do it, remember?"  
  
As he slid under the blanket, he shot back, "Well, you didn't have to give in so easy."  
  
"Ha ha, funny man."  
  
She was right, she was warm now; not Jean warm (thank … gods? No, probably not; they did nothing for Humans) or even normal Human warm, but closer to the latter than the former. She snuggled up next to him, but was careful to rest her head on his chest, avoiding the hollow of his neck, possibly so he didn't think she was going for seconds.  
  
For some time they just laid there, listening to the rain beat a persistent tattoo against the flimsy walls of the shack, and he idly stroked her back, remembering the intricate tattoo that ran the length of her spine. But after a while, she asked a very good question: "So what happens now?"  
  
Oh great. Why did women always have to ask the hard questions?  
  
30  
  
The rain had traveled ahead of him, it seemed, as it was pelting down by the time the jet landed in Vancouver. But it was softer somehow, warmer, and didn't bother the small corporate plane as much as the rain back in Tokyo had when they were taking off.  
  
The landing was so smoothing Logan barely noticed it, and had to gulp down the rest of his beer as the jet taxied down the small runway. It was just after nine pm Pacific standard time, and all he could see out the rain speckled windows were the blue lights of the landing strip, rendered watery smears by the rivulets cascading down the glass.   
  
Still, he knew what would be waiting for him as he disembarked, and he wasn't surprised to see an armored black sedan parked thirty feet away, vertical to the plane, and Tagawa standing outside it in a crisply tailored navy Hermes suit, standing beneath a black umbrella held by a slender Korean man, who was also holding a slim aluminum briefcase in his other hand. Although well dressed himself, he had a lean and strangely placid face that suggested he was some kind of official assistant as opposed to a bodyguard.  
  
The more bulky and obviously packing Ehud was standing on the opposite side of the car, near the driver's side door, in the deceptively easy posture of the professional bodyguard. He was also wearing sunglasses, which couldn't have been more suspicious on a rainy night on a dim airstrip, but Logan could feel when his eyes scudded over him. He was only giving him half the scrutiny that he would a genuine assassin.  
  
Logan gave Tagawa a respectful bow, which Tagawa returned gracefully (and the assistant looked mildly surprised, perhaps not expecting a gaijin to bother), and then, as soon as he was within reach, Logan held out the cloth wrapped bundle in his hands. "Your family's sword, Tagawa-san," he said somewhat formally. From what Yasha had found out, Tagawa was one of the good guys, for a "running dog capitalist" (she was being sarcastic … or so he assumed).  
  
"Thank you," he said, taking the bundle with some reverence. He brought it under the umbrella before starting to unwrap it, and then he only did it until he could see the charcoal tracing of the dragon on the blade. He gasped slightly in surprise. "This is it. I can't believe it. Part of me feared it was a futile gesture."  
  
"Life is full of futile gestures," he said, speaking from very recent experience. "But every now and then, you get lucky."  
  
Tagawa wrapped the sword up once more, and gave him another small bow. "Much thanks, Logan-san. You have given me back something I thought lost for good." He gave the assistant a slight nod, and the boy handed him the briefcase, although warily, as he seemed to be off put by his appearance. Why? He wasn't covered in blood.  
  
Once he took the briefcase, Tagawa shifted the bundle carefully so he could reach in his pocket and pull out a business card. "I am indebted to you. If you ever need anything in return, please do not hesitate to notify me."  
  
Logan took the card with a slight shrug. So now he had a briefcase full of cash, and a rich man's thanks. Life could be so weird.  
  
"I trust there were no problems," Tagawa said, probably being polite.  
  
"Nothing I couldn't handle."  
  
The older man nodded sagely. "Yes - I imagined your abilities would be a great help."  
  
Logan raised an eyebrow at that, reading nothing in Tagawa's peacefully neutral expression, and he suddenly realized a couple of things. He knew he was a mutant (and probably knew Marc was one as well), and surely he had guessed that he was the "inauspicious" mononoke who had wiped out the Takabe and Yashida crime families.   
  
And he didn't care.  
  
Probably he thought they got what they deserved, playing with fire and all of that. But it didn't bother him he had walked away from it? Then again, why would it? Tagawa had walked away from his own crime family; he probably thought they had something in common. Tagawa was ruthlessly pragmatic, wasn't he? His opinion of the man rose slightly.   
  
Tagawa's thin lips curved up in a faint smile, as if he was reading his thoughts. "We're all human beings, Mr. Logan. You'd think that would be obvious to everyone, but some people are … "  
  
"Assholes?" Logan suggested.  
  
Tagawa laughed faintly. "Yes, I imagine that word will do. It's been a pleasure doing business with you. Give my regards to Mr. Drury."  
  
"I will." Logan stepped back with his briefcase full of money, and simply waited as Tagawa, his assistant, and the bulky Ehud got in their car and drove away, leaving him alone on the rainy airstrip.  
  
Well, alone in theory.  
  
"So that was the guy, huh?" Yasha said, emerging from beneath the shadows of the plane. "He seemed pretty reasonable for a scum sucking corporate weasel."  
  
"It takes all kinds, doesn't it?" He turned to face her, blinking rain out of his eyes.  
  
He'd given her a lift to Vancouver - well, it seemed like the least he could do. This was also why he made sure they'd be landing after sundown, although being as overcast as it was, it may not have mattered so much.  
  
Yasha glanced at the suitcase, and asked, "So how much filthy lucre did you get?"  
  
"I can't remember," he admitted. Well, he hadn't been in it for the money, and he knew from the look on her face that that made him something of a freak. More of a freak.  
  
After a small sniff, to make sure the case wasn't booby trapped (not that he didn't trust Tagawa, but the news that he knew he was a mutant made him understandably suspicious), he popped the latches and had a look inside.   
  
It was full of neat bundles of twenty and fifty dollar bills (kind of him to make sure the payment was in small, unmarked bills - he must have done enough business with mercenaries to know the drill), the bland green of American money, and since math wasn't his strong suit, he didn't even try and add it up. But he suspected it was more than they initially agreed upon.  
  
He pulled out a couple of bundles of fifties and handed them to a surprised looking Yasha. "Here. You helped, so you should get something."  
  
"Not half?" She suggested, thumbing through the bundles. He imagined she actually counted it.  
  
"You didn't help that much."  
  
She smirked at him, but still seemed shocked when he closed up the case. "Hey, seriously - this is your money, Logan."  
  
He shook his head. "I don't need it. 'sides, yer starting a new life here - you're gonna need some scratch, right?"  
  
"I brought some," she said, gesturing back at the huge black duffle bag resting on the tarmac, although it was hard to see, as it was still within the shadows of the plane's underbelly. He knew from the way it clinked and how fucking heavy it was that it was mostly weapons (many if not all of her fancy blades and swords, but it was possible she also brought some cash. He had no idea if she brought any clothes at all, save for the leather outfit on her back).  
  
"Still, there's no such thing as too much."  
  
She just stared at him for a long moment, the blue lights reflected in her black eyes. She really was quite beautiful, even with her damp hair hanging down in her face like seaweed. "You're a Human. You're supposed to worship money."  
  
"I missed the memo. And anyways, I'm kinda used to not really having it. It's never really helped me."  
  
She shook her head, not quite able to hide her smile. "You're so weird, Logan. And I mean in a good way. Mostly."  
  
"Of course."  
  
She kissed him then, a languid kiss full of a familiar passion, and it was only slightly disconcerting that she wasn't breathing. When she broke away from him, she stared at him almost wistfully, raindrops glittering in her eyelashes like diamonds. "Too bad you're not a demon."  
  
"Too bad you're not alive," he agreed.  
  
That just made her smile, like he thought it might. "Don't be a stranger. And one of these days, you have to introduce me to the Drai'shajan. Assuming he doesn't kill vampires the moment he encounters them."  
  
"Oh no, he's not judgmental. The Weird Sisters seem to work for him from time to time, and if he never dusted them, he ain't gonna touch you."  
  
Her eyes widened in shock, tension bleeding away from her jaw. "The Weird Sisters? Are you serious?"  
  
"You know of 'em?"  
  
"Who doesn't know of them? Even vampires are afraid of those freaky bitches. Have you met them?"  
  
He nodded with a heavy sigh. "Yeah. And I know what you mean - they're fucking nuts."  
  
"I'm surprised they didn't jump on you and molest you."  
  
"They almost did. I think Bob keeps them in line. Well, as much as anyone can."  
  
"Bob? The Drai'Shajan?" He nodded. "That name's a joke, right?"  
  
"I assume. He has a weird - and constant - sense of humor. I mean, he must, right? He seems to surround him himself with the freakiest of the freaks. Myself included."  
  
"Well, even outsiders need a god, right?" She smiled, and leaned in to give him a kiss on the cheek. She seemed to radiate cold like an ice cube now that the heat flush of his blood had worn off, but he still found his desire for her coming back. Oh, damn it - he didn't want to be attracted to a blood sucking dead woman. But it was hard to deny they had great chemistry together, which made him wonder what that said about him.  
  
"Keep in touch," he told her, wondering how they'd ever accomplish that. He wasn't listed in the phone book, and somehow he doubted he could call information and request to talk to Lady Blood.  
  
She nodded, water falling from her hair and trailing down her oddly alabaster skin. "Sure. And next time you're in Vancouver, look me up. Might be fun to get out there and crack some heads again."  
  
"It's a date." As she started to walk away, he added, "Just eat the scumbags, okay?"  
  
"Usually do," she reassured him with a smile. "They're fun, 'cause they never see it coming."  
  
"I bet," he agreed, although he wasn't sure what he meant by that.   
  
He watched her shoulder her heavy bag - opening it briefly to add the bundles of cash - and she gave him a final, deeply promising smile and wave before disappearing into the night.   
  
Logan shook the rain from his eyes, and tried to remember where the hell he parked his bike.  
  
As he started to walk across the airstrip, it occurred to him, with a mild yet horrifying shock, that he was smiling. Holy shit, what was wrong with him? He had nothing to be smiling about. He had wasted his time in Japan, pissing off a demon mafia in the process, and he had been unable to do anything for Jean or Mariko. He couldn't even get himself killed right.  
  
But, ironically, maybe that was it. There was no happy ending with Mariko or Jean, but at least he knew where he stood now. The hope was gone, but so was some of the pain and regret attached to it. He knew now he had failed them then, but not now - there really hadn't been any hope of saving to begin with. And maybe he really didn't want to die, not right this second at any rate. Perhaps life wasn't so impossibly bad if he could find a vampire with some humanity, even when they didn't have a soul. Or maybe medieval barbers were on to something, and a little blood loss could be a good thing.  
  
Or maybe whatever Jean was doing to him was finally starting to sink its claws into his mind.  
  
Nah.  
  
But he did wonder briefly if Bob would be able to tell him if that was true or not.  
  
31  
  
The mansion seemed strangely subdued and quiet when he arrived. Logan came in to find a few kids sitting in the front room, propped up watching a blaring television (they seemed to be watching one of the Lord of the Rings film), but none of them even looked in his direction.  
  
He headed down the hall towards his room, surprised that he hadn't been bothered by anyone, but as he approached the bend in the hall leading to the adult quarters, he heard a voice singing, "… he promised I would find a little solace and some peace of mind, whatever, just as long as I don't feel so desperate and ravenous. So weak and helpless over you." Bob peeked his head around the corner, a big, shit eating grin on his face, and he said, "Someone finally wrote a song about your relationship with women."  
  
Logan flipped him the bird, which just made Bob laugh, as it usually did. He noted his new bizarre t-shirt - what the fuck was Cockshutt? - but he knew better than to ask. "So who the fuck died around here?"  
  
Bob's face fell, resolving into a more serious expression, and Logan felt his stomach plummet. Oh god, someone actually had died. "Chameleon," he told him grimly.  
  
"Cressida?" Logan was honestly baffled. Of all people, he'd never have guessed her. "What the fuck happened?"  
  
Bob held out his hand towards him, and said, "May I?"  
  
It took him a moment to realize he was asking to use his version of telepathy on him. Oh hell, he'd had Jean in his head, right? What was one more god? "Yeah."  
  
Bob grabbed his arm, and it was like a lightning bolt shot straight into his cerebral cortex. He staggered back, white motes exploding in front of his eyes, and he grabbed his head until he assimilated the information he had given him. He was pretty sure that Bob had grabbed his recent memories while doing the data dump, but since he would have seen them anyways, he didn't care.  
  
As his vision returned and the pain ebbed, he looked up at Bob in shock. "They came after Camaxtli? Did Jean request them?"  
  
"As far as I could tell, no. They just picked up his presence while he was saving his avatar."  
  
"So Jean never actually died."  
  
"No." Bob suddenly grinned, his eyes twinkling like stars. "Ooh, do I catch a love buzz between you and Mei Li there?"  
  
Logan scowled violently, belatedly sorry that Bob had picked up on that. But how could he not? "No, you don't."  
  
But Bob just continued to give him that infuriating grin. "How great is that? You went there to try and resurrect dead loves, and you may have found a new one. I'm getting all tingly."  
  
"It was just sex."  
  
"No it wasn't," he immediately replied, his face lit up like he was high on laughing gas. "You wanted to help her, and she couldn't kill you. If that isn't love, what is?" Logan assumed that was rhetorical, because he quickly went on. "It's like a romantic drama, isn't it? Two people from opposites worlds - a vampire tired of being a vampire, and a mutant tired of living - find each other on a fruitless quest, and discover that they can both be horribly alone and alienated from their own kind together. It's like a love story. Written by a depressive on crack, okay, but still - "  
  
"Will you shut up already?" He snapped. "It was just sex, and it's over. She's in Vancouver."  
  
"And you were planning to go back," Bob said, raising his eyebrows in a comically suggestive manner. "You were just checking in here. And even if you decided to stay, she'd have come here. Don't even try and lie to me, Logan. I think it's fabulous, mate - go for it. You have so little happiness in your life, get what you can."  
  
"She's dead," he pointed out, although he had no idea why. Vampire equaled dead.  
  
"Not really - only the host body is technically dead. The demon that Humans call vampire is very much alive, as you well know. And she's not only any old vamp either - she has common sense, and something passing for a conscience. That's ultra rare. But she's still hard core, like you; you two are an ass kicking match made in heaven. Or hell. Technically, they can be the same thing."  
  
"You're mocking me."  
  
"No! Absolutely not. Does she mind the cold? You guys could have my cabin for a while. Or, I got a really nice place in the English countryside; pastoral, but not as rustic or Luddite inclined as the cabin. As long as you don't mind being down wind of sheep, you can have your peace and quite, but still get to London for some pub crawling."  
  
Logan shook his head, and walked past him, hoping he couldn't pick up that his face was absolutely burning. Okay, so he found it hard to get Yasha off his mind, but he hadn't fallen in love with her. Not only was he not the type, no one fell in love that fast anyways. It was just lust. She was beautiful, and she had stamina - that seemed like a rare combination. And yeah, she did kick some major ass, and he always found that strangely attractive in a woman. Logan focused on the matter they were supposed to be discussing. "I can't believe Cressida is dead. She was one tough cookie."  
  
"I know, but she might not be dead as we think," Bob said, humoring his change of topic. But Logan just knew he'd switch the topic back as soon as possible. "Come with me to her room, and I'll show you what I mean." 


	15. Part 15

Logan was almost afraid to pause and let Bob take the lead, but he did, because as always curiosity got the better of him. This really was going to kill him one day.  
  
Cressida's room turned out to be just down the hall from his, separated only by two other rooms. Once Bob opened the door and went in, he saw that Cressida - much like himself - didn't make herself much at home, or perhaps just didn't have time. As a shapeshifter who went liquid when she relaxed, she had no clothes at all, or any need for make up, combs, et cetera, so she probably traveled lighter than most. There was a towel on the floor, though, and he wondered if she shoved it under the door so she didn't accidentally seep out while asleep.  
  
Bob went to the dresser and picked up the only item besides the towel in the otherwise generic room. He punched something on it with his thumb and tossed it to him. Even as Logan caught it, he wasn't sure what it was.  
  
"It's a palm top," Bob told him, then clarified, "Sort of a palm pilot with wi-fi connections."  
  
"Okay," Logan agreed, having no fucking clue what he was on about. It did look like a palm pilot though, flat and about the size of his hand, although the graphics on it were slightly better. Okay, hand held computer, like on Star Trek. Got it.  
  
"She apparently was typing out an email for you," Bob said, gesturing for him to read the screen. "So Scott was going to get his wish after all - she was planning to leave - but she wanted to leave you a message. You were both Organization, after all."  
  
That statement made him wary. He glanced at the screen with great trepidation. It read: "Wolverine, I know they fucked with your head, so you probably don't remember any of this shit. But Static was a great hacker, and routinely took a walk around some of the hidden files in the Org comps before they wiped them. Shortly before she died, she found something interesting. There was a reference to a cloning project involving the Alphas, but it wasn't Armageddon - this one was called Project Eidolon (fuck them and their fruity names). And in case you don't remember this either, the Alphas were what they considered the "premium" mutants, the best killers and the ones with the most useful powers. I was an Alpha. So was Static, Timebomb, Spider, Reaper, Inferno, Atomic, Dreamer, Ballistic, Impulse, and you, of course. Eidolon also branched out into what was referred to as "genetic recombination", but some of us were eliminated from that part of the project - me, for one, as Static found a record saying my genes were far too mutable to allow any successful recombining, as it would just take on the "flavor" of whatever was introduced. I thought it was just the Chimera project, but she said no, this was separate, according to the files she found.  
  
Static never did get back to me on what this was all about, but then again, she was dead. Maybe this was a terminated project, or maybe this was like Project Sleeper - so deeply buried she didn't find much, if anything at all. I don't know. But I thought you should know that Armageddon, while an actual threat, was not the only project where they used us. They used us - the Alphas especially - a lot. They knew we were the future, and they wanted to manipulate it as much as they could.  
  
You can't fight the future, but goddamn it, they tried. They fought future with future, and hoped it would all even out in the end. No wonder their species is doomed."  
  
That was how the message ended, and he didn't know if that was where she meant to stop, or if she had simply run out of time. "Clones?" He said aloud, and chuckled bitterly. "They haven't even perfected that with sheep yet, have they?" He tossed the palm top back to Bob, feeling vaguely ill.  
  
"You know what we're dealing with here," Bob said, putting the computer back on Cressida's useless dresser. "The rules they play by are far ahead of what's available in the mainstream."  
  
"So she's saying there's clones of us running around out there somewhere?"  
  
"Not necessarily. Recombination suggests they were trying to build better yous - fight the future with the future. The problem is, we have no idea if they were successful, or if any of the experiments are currently living - they've been clearing out their little problem, remember?"  
  
"But you said she could still be alive."  
  
"Cressida was perfect for cloning," he admitted. "Her unique genetic structure could apparently "regenerate" itself, even from just a small amount of material. It would take a while, but theoretically you could get another copy of her from just one ounce of ... well, her. And before you ask, no, we can't do that now - the Shafans burned her to a crisp, from the genes up. She's not regenerating from that."  
  
Logan rubbed his eyes, and laughed again, covering up the anger that was swelling inside him. What hadn't those fucking monsters taken from them? Freedom, reproductive rights, their minds - nothing was off limits. "I kinda suspected something like this," he reluctantly admitted. "After Srina told me that I told her that the Organization had a full biological catalog of me, from DNA to sperm samples - what else were they gonna use that fuckin' stuff for? I guess I just hoped they'd failed, or Armageddon was the end of it."   
  
Bob's look was infuriatingly pitying. "I've got my connections on it. I'll see what I can dig up."  
  
"Fine. But who the fuck are these people? Dreamer, Impulse, Ballistic ..? I've never heard those code names before."  
  
He shrugged. "Well, mate, we can't ask Cressie, so I'm just hoping we can find out. Maybe they're still alive and out there somewhere."  
  
"Which does us no good. We don't know their real names, or the names they're using now."  
  
"But that still may be enough for me to find something on them," Bob countered. "Also, you could ask Marcus - for a civilian, he has dug up an impressive amount of information on these people. He missed his calling as a muck raking journalist."  
  
Logan shrugged in a half-hearted agreement, aware Marcus was still overseas, helping the European Union shut down mutant exploiters. Proof that you didn't need to work with Xavier to get things done. "Marc has connections. Also, he's pretty smart."  
  
"Must be all that philosophy shit."  
  
Logan realized that what the Organization may have or may have not done to him was suddenly at the top of his do not discuss list, knocking Yasha into second place. That was quick. "Who else - "  
  
But Bob didn't let him finish. "No one. I ended up seein' if there was anything to clean up in here myself after Scott stormed off in an angry huff."  
  
Logan quickly sorted through the memories Bob had given him to see if he could find the reason why. "'Cause he led the team where Cressida died?"  
  
"Well, no, although that upset him because it brought up memories of Jean. No, he stormed off 'cause of Jean."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"I told them."  
  
He felt a sudden stab of panic. "Told them what?"  
  
"That Jean never really died, and that she was transformed by Cammy."  
  
"I bet that went down like a barium shake."  
  
Bob grimaced as if at a painful memory, but as usual lost little of his flippant nature. "Chuck wasn't all that surprised - he knew she was still out there somewhere - but it was still a shock, since no one guessed the Camaxtli angle. Scott went nuclear, as I figured he would. I shut off his power, though, and while I allowed him to grab me by the shirt, I froze him otherwise. I misjudged his reaction to that."  
  
"Made things worse?"  
  
"In a way, yes. He felt emasculated, and my connection to the whole Cammy thing - and the Shafan demons connection with the Cammy thing … well, it was just too much for him, ya know? He thinks I'm a lyin' scumbag who sacrificed his fiancée to the bloodthirsty war god, and that I've been playin' you all along."  
  
"Why would you bother? You're powerful enough to make us all do what you want and never tell us about it."  
  
"Yes, but that's logical. Scott wasn't being logical. He was being emotionally distraught and made a rash decision."  
  
"Which was?"  
  
"He quit the X-Men. Chuck tried to say it wasn't necessarily my fault - what faint praise - and Scott threw down his communicator doohickey so hard it broke like a made in Taiwan watch. He said he quit and stormed out like a big ol' drama queen."  
  
Logan was honestly surprised, because he didn't think Scott had the balls to do something like that. "Does he have a life outside the institute?"  
  
"Not as such, no."  
  
"So where the fuck did he go?"  
  
"Well, as far as I could tell, he swanned off to get stinkin' drunk."  
  
"He doesn't drink."  
  
"He wants to learn."  
  
Logan rolled his eyes, wondering how pathetic it must have been to be Scott. He couldn't even imagine what it must have been like to be wound up that tight - how had his spine never snapped? "So he's off somewhere tryin' to get sloshed on Shirley Temples? It'll probably do him some good. Well, until the rednecks assume he's gay and jump him."  
  
"Which is why I'm glad you're here. I was thinking - "  
  
It was Logan's turn to jump ahead in the conversation. "No."  
  
Bob looked at him, perfectly innocent, which was such a joke. An "innocent" Bob was like a slender hippo - never gonna happen on this fucking planet. "No what?"  
  
"You were gonna tell me to go get him before he gets his ass beaten to a pulp. I didn't come back here to baby sit Scott."  
  
"Assume ten guys, some with weapons, but only one with a gun. How long would it take you to put them all down?"  
  
"Two minutes, forty seven seconds. Tops."  
  
That made Bob looked at him slightly askance, trying not to grin. "You've timed it down to the second?"  
  
"I was guessing," he replied defensively.  
  
But Bob shook his head, folding his arms across his chest as the grin broke out on his face in spite of his efforts at self-control. "Ya know, ya just proved my point."  
  
"What, that if Scott gets the floor mopped up with his face, I'm the only one that could end it quickly?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"You could end it quicker."  
  
"Are you forgetting he hates me right now?"  
  
"He hates me too."  
  
Bob shook his head. "He resents you. There's a difference."  
  
Logan rolled his eyes. Only Bob would bother to parse the many variations of intense dislike.   
  
On a completely different topic, only related because it was Jean, Logan asked, "Is it even remotely possible she killed him?"  
  
He meant Camaxtli, and Bob knew it. His expression became unusually grim. "No. I'm sure he was weakened - Eris can kick all our asses, and doesn't need to get outta bed - but a weakened god is still a god. You were right to suspect he's still in there somewhere - Cammy's probably up to something. What I have no idea, but you have to keep in mind he's an ageless bugger with a taste for senseless destruction. He's crafty, he's clever, and he's unfathomably vicious when he sets his mind to it. He's using her, and making sure she's got no clue about it." He then flashed his a cheesy, insincere smile. "Make sure not to mention this when you go get the Boy Scout."  
  
He was in no mood to argue, or to think for that manner. And a beer did sound very good right now, and he was sure no one had stocked some especially for him. Perhaps tracking down Scott and dragging his sorry, scrawny ass home was the lesser of the two evils. "Fine, if I go get him, you'll have to do what I came here to do."  
  
Bob had to think about it. "And that is ..?"  
  
"The message. You broke enough shocking news to 'em today, right? What's one more?" Logan quickly turned and walked out, before Bob could change his mind. Of course, he could have frozen him in place, but all he heard was Bob's heavy sigh as he continued down the hall. He probably figured saving Scott's ass was the most important thing.  
  
But Logan paused in the empty corridor, not bothering to turn back as he asked the one question that had been making his head hurt ever since he returned from Japan. "Is there any way we can save her?"  
  
Bob was quiet for a long time - too long - and Logan thought maybe he didn't hear him. But of course he did, and Logan really didn't like the defeat he heard in his normally cheerful voice. "I don't know, Logan. I'll do my best."  
  
And that was all he could he ask, but it still made him feel strangely shaky and ill. If it came down to killing Jean to protect them all from Camaxtli … how could they do it? How could anyone? Bob might up for it, but if he did, Logan wasn't sure he'd ever be able to forgive him, even though he knew very well the threat Camaxtli posed to the world.  
  
He tried to console himself with the knowledge that this wasn't something they had to worry about right now, but how long could they coast on ignorance?  
  
Because that was the message that Jean had wanted him to deliver to the others: She was coming back. As soon as possible.  
  
_______  
  
The End  
  
(To be continued….) 


End file.
